Free The Big Fight by Sugar Ray Leonard

forty seconds left in the third round.
    In the quarterfinals against East Germany’s Ulrich Beyer, I was aggressive from the start and controlled the opening round, though I didn’t land any real heavy blows. In the second, Beyer held his own, but I connected late in the round with a powerful right uppercut that pushed his head back. I then kept up the pressure in the third and coasted to victory. In the semis, I faced Kazimier Szczerba, the fighter from Poland whom I lost to when the referee ruled that my knockout punch came after the bell. I was intent on leaving no room for human error in our rematch, and I couldn’t waste any time. That was perhaps the most critical difference between the amateurs and the pros. With only three rounds to make an impression, every second counted.
    With about a minute left in the first round, after carefully measuring him, I started to get through his defenses on a consistent basis. In the second, I scored with my left over and over. Szczerba didn’t come close to going down, but I dictated the tempo and secured the decision. There was nothing the judges could do this time.
    Finally, the day arrived, Saturday, July 31. After 149 fights, which included 144 victories, there was only one left and it would be the most important of all.
    I didn’t get much sleep the night before and was up early, around seven o’clock, three or four hours before the weigh-in. After I made weight, I spent the early afternoon walking around the grounds with my family.
    Around three or four o’clock, someone suggested I go back to my room and get a little rest. It wasn’t that simple. For four years, I had dreamed of this moment and sacrificed everything. Now it was almost here.
    There were still two major obstacles standing in my path.
    One was the condition of my hands, which hurt more than ever, the result of five fights in twelve days. The pain was so bad in my right hand that I could barely make a fist. The other was Andres Aldama, the fierce Cuban fighter I would face in the final.
    There was little I could do about my hands. I soaked them in ice for hours to bring down the swelling, but knew the first punch I threw would bring the pain right back.
    Aldama was another matter. He was so dominant in the semis against the Bulgarian Vladimir Kolev—the poor guy was taken out of the ring on a stretcher after he was knocked unconscious—that as I watched a tape of the fight in a screening room at the Village, I overheard another athlete say, “Oh, shit, this is the guy fighting Sugar Ray next? He is going to destroy him.” I snuck out the back of the room.
    I could understand the sentiment. Yet I was not deterred. I was never deterred. Not in the ring.
    The strategy against Aldama was to take advantage of my superior lateral movement and hand speed. If I failed to maintain a safe distance, Aldama would discover his range, deliver his shots, and I might be the one leaving on a stretcher.
    My mind wandered a lot during those final hours as I lay on my bed. I dozed off, eventually.

    I t was time to leave for the arena. The team boarded the bus for the short trip. I didn’t say a word. I don’t think anybody did. What was there to say? We knew what we had to do.
    In the locker room, Sarge Johnson, speaking in his familiar deep voice, led us in prayer.
    Our dreams began to come true. Leo Randolph took home the gold and Howard Davis did the same. His mom would have been proud. Now it was my turn to keep the streak going. Four years of hard work were about to come down to nine minutes. It almost seemed unfair.
    I bowed to the fans in each corner of the stadium, which I did before every fight.
    The bell rang.
    In the first round, my plan worked beautifully, as Aldama, referred to as “the Cuban” by Cosell and analyst George Foreman, did not come close to inflicting any serious damage, while I scored with a few solid left hooks. Still, I didn’t do anything