The Big Fight (25 page)

The problem wasn't physical. It was mental. I was thinking about everything except how to take out Bruce Finch. I had assumed any troubles in motivation would vanish the minute the bell sounded. They always had before, even when the competition was weak. Except that in those days I was on a mission to win a title, each conquest bringing me closer. Now, with the belts secured, Duran and Hearns vanquished, the passion for boxing was almost gone. Another sign came after the fight, when I saw Finch and his family in tears. I told them I was sorry. Fighters do not apologize. We may embrace our opponents. We may applaud them for their courage. We do not apologize.

In the van on our way back to the hotel, the strangest thing happened. No one spoke. Normally, Janks or Angelo or one of the boys or my father would compliment me on a punch I threw or a move I made. This time, nothing I did deserved any praise. I felt as if I were going to a funeral. I should have been mad at myself. Instead, I was mad at them. I spent the rest of the evening in my room alone, sulking, acting like a child. It wasn't the first time.

Over the next few days I gave some thought to retiring but I wasn't serious. At twenty-five, I was entering the prime of my career and I wasn't about to stop being Sugar Ray Leonard. I was just in a rut. I'd come out of it.

By early spring, I was training for my next opponent, Roger Stafford, the bout scheduled for May 14 in Buffalo, New York. Following Stafford, the future possibilities included WBA light welterweight champion Aaron Pryor and the man everyone was talking about, Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Some may have assumed that because Hagler was a middleweight, there was too great a discrepancy in our weight divisions, that I would not bulk up to 160, and he would not slim down to 154. Nonetheless, after I survived Hearns, it seemed almost inevitable that Hagler and I would meet someday. The public would demand it, and when it does, the authorities in boxing find a way to make the fight. The payoff would be too enormous to resist.

Stafford was no Hearns but he was no Finch, either. The previous November, he knocked Pipino Cuevas down in the second round and won a unanimous decision, which
The Ring
chose as the top upset of 1981. If I was not at my best, I could very well lose my title, and any chance for a payday with Hagler.

While training for Stafford, however, my mood was as lousy as it had been for Finch, if not worse. I usually looked forward to the sparring sessions. I loved beating up my partners and entertaining the fans, many of whom could never afford the high ticket prices for a real fight. I spent extra time deciding which colors I'd wear into the ring. I wanted everything to be perfect.

That was not the case in preparing for Stafford. I got dressed at the last minute and gave the absolute minimum effort when I worked out. It did not help that the fight was to be staged in Buffalo. Nothing against the fine citizens of Buffalo, but it is always cold there, even in late April. One weekend, I felt so empty that I went back to Maryland and consumed three or four glasses of wine at dinner with Juanita. I was trying to be a fighter and a civilian at the same time. It is not possible.

As it turned out, a cranky disposition was the least of my problems.

It started on the fourth day in Buffalo. I noticed spots out of my left eye that I'd never seen before. I didn't pay too much attention at first. Either I was more weary than I thought or I had been staring too long into the sun. I didn't tell anybody, figuring the spots would disappear. Little things like that came up all the time during training and were gone in a day or two. When I did tell a few people in camp, they told me not to worry. Everybody gets these spots, they said. I went back to working out, looking for a reason to get fired up about Roger Stafford.

Except that the spots, known more commonly as floaters, did not go away, and of greater concern was that my eyelid began to feel like a curtain that was slowly closing, my visibility becoming less clear. I didn't feel any pain in the eye, and there was no swelling, but something was obviously wrong. After I explained the situation to Julius (Juice) Gatling, one of my boys, he urged me to have the eye examined immediately. Juice was uniquely attuned to any eye difficulties, given that he had lost one of his in a car accident several years earlier. In being candid, though, he caught flack from several members of my team who were more interested in their paychecks than my well-being. Shocking, isn't it?

I visited a doctor who gave me a few eyedrops and suggested I have it checked out again after the fight. The sense of relief I felt cannot be overstated. I trained with renewed vigor when I returned to the hotel. For the first time, I was eager to face Stafford.

The excitement did not last. I saw more spots. The eyedrops were not the solution. A week before the fight, on a Friday morning, I went to see another doctor, a specialist. The news was grim.

“I'm sorry to tell you this, but you have a detached retina,” he said.

“A detached retina? How serious is that?” I said.

“Very serious,” he said.

“Should I go on with the fight?” I asked. He said he wouldn't if it were him. I respected his view but decided to seek a second opinion.

The original idea was to go on Monday to the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, but waiting an entire weekend for more details would drive me crazy. Instead, we made plans for me, Janks, and my father to fly from Buffalo to Washington on Saturday morning. Before we could leave, I had to pretend that everything was normal. It was one of the hardest acting jobs I ever had to do.

When I returned to the hotel gym, there were tons of people waiting for me, including the mayor and several local TV crews. They expected the usual show—shadowboxing, jumping rope, hitting the bags, etc. I gave it to them. What else could I do? While I was performing, I felt horrible. These nice people were getting pumped up about the kind of event that rarely comes to Buffalo, telling me over and over how much the city adored me. I was almost certain there would be no fight and I couldn't clue them in.

During the flight, I stared out the window for the longest time. Suddenly, shockingly, my father and I talked. We never talked. We exchanged meaningless sentences. But now we were engaging in an actual conversation about issues that mattered—his fears and my fears, and how he would pray for my recovery. He cried. I couldn't remember the last time I saw him cry.

Around five P.M., after hooking up with Juanita and Mike Trainer at the airport in D.C., we found ourselves in the office of Dr. Ronald Michels, who had operated on heavyweight Earnie Shavers for a similar ailment. I was scared and I wasn't the only one.

Dr. Michels asked me to read the eye chart. It was as if I were back in elementary school. I recited each letter correctly except for one on the bottom row.

I looked around the room. Everyone was smiling. How bad could my eye be if I could see that far away?

The next part of the examination was to dilate the pupil. I lay down on a table as Dr. Michels shone a light and did an inspection of my retina. After he finished, he paused. I could tell by the expression on his face that what he was about to tell me would not be what I wanted to hear. “There is definitely a partial detachment,” he said. “And you don't have much time. If you don't take care of this in the next week or so, you could go blind in that eye.”

There, he said it, the
B
word, the word that had been in the back of my mind from the moment I noticed the very first floater. Now it was out there, no longer just a fear, and there was nowhere to hide. It was as if he had said “You have a tumor.” Yet I maintained my composure. I always did, at least in public. That was not the case with Juanita. She began to sob. We excused ourselves and went into another office. She cried louder and louder. There was nothing I could say to wipe away her tears.

Not everyone in our group, however, was as mindful of my welfare. After the doctor said I'd need an operation, Janks Morton had the nerve to ask: “Can he fight and come back later for the surgery?” We all looked at Janks as if he were out of his mind. I did not ask him then, or ever, how he could have been so insensitive, though I never forgot what he said.

Dr. Michels told me I could come back in a few days to have the surgery, which I was inclined to do. I was a fighter and I needed time to get in the zone. I was then reminded of how much of a fighter Juanita Wilkinson was, and always had been. The tears gone, she was stronger than anyone on my team.

“No,” she insisted. “We will stay here tonight and have the surgery tomorrow.” I was in no position to argue. Tomorrow it was.

It was during these exchanges, and they were frequent, when Juanita's love and concern for my well-being made me cherish her more than words can describe. And when I reflect on the pain I caused her by chasing after women who could never match her kindness, the guilt becomes almost more than I can withstand. Juanita didn't leave my sight the whole night, sleeping on a cot next to me.

I got almost no sleep. The nurses barged into the room four or five times to check my temperature and administer blood tests. They weren't the only visitors. The story that I was at Johns Hopkins had been all over the news. As a result, until close to midnight, strangers kept popping in, wishing me well. I appreciated their concern, though I would have preferred a little privacy. It wasn't until the morning that I received the proper security.

The biggest reason for my lack of sleep was the fear that I could not bury with my usual resolve. Of all the parts that made me a champion, I relied on my eyes the most, and now they were the ones that were letting me down. I had thought I was invincible. I wasn't, and it wasn't my future as a boxer I was most worried about. It was my ability to see, period, out of my left eye. What if something went wrong on the operating table? What if the detachment was greater than they thought? This wasn't a fight. I couldn't talk to Angelo and go over any adjustments in the corner. If anybody was “blowing it,” it would not be me. Yes, I'd still have one good eye left, but that's no way to go through life. I'd never be the same again.

I took time that evening to compose in my head the statement I would make to the press once I came to after the operation. Here, thankfully, was one aspect of this awful ordeal I could control. For a change, however, the precise words did not come. Each time I attempted to put a positive spin on the situation—
the operation was a success, my eye will be 100 percent,
etc.—I had to stop and start over. My first impulse, as usual, was to think about my image and make people feel good, but there was no guarantee the surgery would go well. After three or four attempts, I gave up and dozed off. I was given anesthesia in the morning and the next thing I remember, I was in the recovery room with a black patch over my eye.

The operation lasted about two hours and did go well, thank God, although it would be weeks, if not months, before the doctors would know if I'd make a complete recovery. I was fortunate that the tear occurred at the bottom of the eye and that just under 50 percent of the retina had separated.

I couldn't wait that long. Once everyone left my room upstairs except for Juanita, I did what I was specifically told not to do. I ripped the patch off. I didn't see much, only a glimmer of light, but I saw enough. I was not blind in my left eye. That night, I slept like a baby. Over the next several days, I received thousands of letters and calls, including one from President Reagan. I do not remember what the president said, but he was very friendly. I spent about a week in the hospital, Juanita taking care of everything. She fed me. She bathed me. She walked me to the bathroom. When I woke up in the middle of the night in pain, she gave me my pills. She was an angel.

On May 16, wearing the patch, I left the hospital and returned to my house in the D.C. suburb of Mitchellville to begin pondering my next move. Nothing was certain anymore.

It was one thing to
think
about retirement, which I did routinely—after Benitez, the first Duran fight, and Finch. I was the one in control, assessing how much more punishment my body was willing to take, and nobody except my wife was privy to those thoughts. It was quite another to have events control me, to be forced, perhaps, at the ridiculously young age of twenty-six to leave the only career I had ever known. And to do what, exactly? Commercials? Commentary? I wasn't sure. I decided to give myself six months to figure things out.

Many fans and members of the boxing community didn't need six months to render their verdict: I should quit immediately. In their view, I risked permanent damage to my eye and had absolutely nothing left to prove.

If I did return to the ring, it would reveal, as the noted
Washington Post
columnist Shirley Povich put it, “a foolish pluck that would also invite the suspicion he wants more money than his monthly printouts show him to own, in the millions.” Although I respected this opinion, I wasn't going to make a rash decision with countless ramifications, and not just for me and my loved ones. The end of my boxing career would mean the end of lucrative paydays for the rest of Team Leonard.

On May 27, I met with reporters for the first time since the operation. Wearing a pair of glasses I borrowed from Roger, I was not my normal confident self. I told them about ripping the eye patch off in my room, and addressed speculation that the injury took place during the Hearns fight. I traced it instead to the workout when I was struck by Odell Hadley's elbow. Only much later did it occur to me that the damage I sustained in the Geraldo fight in May 1979 was the more likely cause. Either way, it made no difference. What mattered was whether my eye would heal.

The conference was soon over, the beast fed for another day. The reporters would devote their precious column inches to other men now, fighters they were sure would be back in action.