“Manos de Piedra” Roberto Durán scored one of boxing’s greatest victories and became a two-division champion when he won the WBC welterweight title with a 15 round unanimous decision over “Sugar” Ray Leonard at the Olympic Stadium in Montréal, Canada in 1980.
Leonard, a media darling and likable U.S. hero who memorably won gold at the 1976 Olympics, had gone on to demonstrate incredible promise as a professional. More importantly, he defeated the great Wilfred Benítez for his first title and was returning to the same venue in which he won his Olympic gold for his second defense against Durán.
By this point Durán’s run at lightweight was already legendary and well-respected. He’d already suffered an embarrassing defeat to Esteban de Jesús, and despite 71 other victories he was an underdog against Leonard and tabbed as unlikely to move up two divisions to win another title. A minor scare during Durán’s pre-fight physical ended up being a non-factor.
On closed circuit and in front of about 45,000 live spectators, Leonard and Durán engaged in a high-level chess battle. Before the bout, Durán said he wanted to get Leonard off his game in the psychological sense and his constant talking seemed to do exactly that when Leonard pledged to stand with Durán and fight, then often did it during the bout.
Durán forced the fighting early on, however, and his careful aggression is what pulled it out for him. Leonard fought back and did well in the middle rounds, even stinging Durán with hooks and uppercuts on a few occasions, but Durán came on late and even taunted Leonard in round 15.
When the final bell tolled, Leonard celebrated and Durán whipped around and smacked his shoulder, as if to admonish him for even pretending as if he could have won. And he was right. Initially Durán was announced the winner by majority decision, and later it was corrected to unanimous.
“I said I would fight Duran flat-footed and I did,” Leonard said. “I had no alternative. I wouldn’t change if I had to do it all over again. People questioned whether I could take the big punch. I showed them. I have to give Duran a lot of credit. He is the toughest man I’ve ever fought.”
