BERNSTEIN ON BOXING
BORN TO BE A STAR By Al Bernstein
Ray, I was not the broadcaster who was in his orbit the most in that period. I was a part of the telecasts of five Hagler fights, five Hearns battles, four Duran matches and only one for Leonard. This is not to say I didn’t have plenty of interactions with Ray and talk about his exploits on the air, but two of my colleagues (both brilliant announcers and Boxing Hall of Famers) had a closer working and personal relationship with Ray. That’s why I need to add the two other voices of Barry Tompkins and Tim Ryan to this column. They both announced a number of Ray’s fights and announced with him during that period. They have a unique perspective on this man who was such a central figure in perhaps the best overall era boxing has ever had. Barry was there when Ray had his breakthrough moment of winning the 1976 Olympic gold medal. He said, “As I was calling those fights, you just knew he was the goods. He was an amateur who had all the trappings of being a great pro. He was great in the ring and gave off an aura that was unmistakable, even at such a young age.” Leonard’s star power is a matter of record, but still, firsthand experiences tend to further buttress it. Barry has his share of these. “We were walking down a street in London and he literally became the pied piper. People started following us, and it multiplied as we went. This was not a boxing setting, just a street in London where everyone knew him and wanted to be around him,” Barry explained. He also remembered, “We were at a Lebanese restaurant in Italy that I presumed was not filled with hardcore boxing fans. Literally every person at every table knew him and could not avert their gaze or resist coming by our table to pay respects.” My favorite of Barry’s stories is this one: “One time in an arena where we were doing a broadcast, we went to the bathroom and they cleared out the bathroom for us to go inside. A few minutes later, we were leaving the bathroom and there was a crowd of close to 100 people congregating outside, and
they burst into applause.” Ray is perhaps the only person I’ve ever heard of to receive applause just for urinating. Dealing with that level of fame could be a daunting experience, but Ray has navigated it as well as any superstar ever. Barry said, “Even at the beginning when he wasn’t yet savvy enough to figure it out, he had some inbred quality that he carried with him. He handled his public as well as anyone I’ve seen. He never turned down an autograph but never stopped for long conversations; he moved on to the next person, maybe patting a youngster on the head and saying, ‘Hi, champ!’ And he always looked people in the eyes with a smile that made them feel good about the interaction. No one told him how to do this. He just knew how to be a star.” For my part, I remember doing a program with Ray and Michael Buffer at a computer conference where they did some kind of high-tech presentation with a boxing theme. We finished the program, and they had a place to do photos. There were about 400 people at this event. Every single one of them wanted a photo with Ray, and he pleasantly stood for every picture and engaged every one of them with that easy, charming demeanor that is his trademark. The process of working through all these people was long and arduous, but he did not waver. Tim explained it all this way: “He genuinely enjoys that part of his life. It was always a kick for him to be a heroic figure, and he relates well with boxing fans. He appreciates people recognizing him as a great boxer.” There was a time in our society where you had to accomplish something special to warrant the kind of attention and adulation Ray got, and it is best we not forget what made this all happen: his great moments in the ring. Tim put it succinctly: “His physical skills were, of course, amazing, but part of why he was so good is that he was so intelligent in the ring. He never felt he needed to knock every guy out – though it often happened. He was interested in winning
round.’ This was way before any fight had been signed or seriously talked about. [Three] years later, they fought and that’s exactly what he did.” What made the guile and intelligence work, however, was the innate toughness and even a mean streak he was often capable of showing in the ring. Barry remembers that when Leonard’s mentor/adviser Ollie Dunlap first discovered Ray, “he was in a fight in a pool room in which pool sticks were even involved in the scuffle, and Ollie realized something serious and life changing could happen. He ushered Ray out of there, got him in the gym and started his great career, and it started Ollie assisting and taking care of Ray in a way few others have done for somebody else. That fierceness that Ray showed in that pool hall never left him and he used it, but only in the ring.” In 2012, when Tommy Hearns was being inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame, both Ray and Marvin were there for the occasion. Back then, everyone stayed at this tiny, less-than- elegant motel that housed all these boxing superstars for the weekend. I was also being inducted that year and Ray, Marvin and Tommy were in rooms in close proximity to mine. My then- 12-year-old son, Wes, who was not then or now a boxing aficionado, was befriended by these three members of the Four Kings. They were all like uncles to him through the weekend. Wes knew they were famous but did not fully grasp that there were countless people out there who would call camaraderie with these men a once-in-a-million experience. Wes just kept telling me, “They are all such nice men.” Well, as we sat in the breakfast room at the motel the last day of the weekend, Wes took in the scene of greats milling around this room for the last time and said to me, “Dad, it seems like when Mr. Leonard is in the room, it makes everything so special to everyone. Do you think that’s true?” I told him he was right, and it is still true as Sugar Ray reaches 70. It will always be so.
You’d be hard-pressed to guess Sugar Ray’s age by looking at him.
the fight with his artistic prowess.” Barry said, “Ray was a student of the game. We’d be sitting there at ringside before our part of the broadcast went on, and he’d be watching preliminary fights dissecting what each fighter was doing well and not so well. He would predict what was about to happen and was always right.” Of all his victories in the ring, perhaps the one that was most famously crafted by guile was his upset victory by a thin margin over Hagler (well, thin everywhere except on the absurd 118- 110 scorecard of Jo Jo Guerra). This one demonstrated how the Leonard boxing IQ could come into play. Here’s Barry’s tale of that: “At the end of the Hagler-Duran fight, Duran, after losing, came and leaned over the ropes and said to Ray, ‘You can beat this guy.’ Three or four months later, when we were together, [Leonard] said to me, ‘Let’s go have lunch.’ Well, in true Ray fashion, he had chartered a boat and we cruised as we had lunch. Over lunch he told me how he would beat Marvin if they ever fought. ‘I will try and control the tempo as much as I can. And I will fight vigorously in 15-second intervals about three or four times a round – two coming at the beginning and end of the
T here are some topics that have reached their quota of discussion and new insights. The era of the Four Kings in boxing is not one of them. People continue to write books, do documentaries and television shows, discuss endlessly on social media and, yes, write magazine articles about that era and those four remarkable men. So it did not surprise me when it was suggested to me by Ring Magazine to write my column about Sugar Ray Leonard as he reaches a milestone with his 70th birthday. Yes, let that sink in – Ray is about to turn 70 (though it’s hard to accept, because he looks so much younger). Boxing
Leonard’s pro career was preceded by an equally brilliant amateur run.
fans, both young and old, still want to hear any story or anecdote about the Four Kings. The quartet of Leonard, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns and Roberto Duran continue to fascinate us. I was there in real time for this amazing period, and I was one of the main voices heard chronicling those matches and the journey of these men. I was certainly not the only voice, however. In fact, when it comes to Sugar
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