Following his huge victory over Thomas Hearns that unified the welterweight title on September 16, 1981, Ray Leonard rested the remainder of 1981. His next opponent was to be Bruce Finch on February 15, 1982 at the Centennial Coliseum in Reno, Nevada. Another HBO broadcast, which meant I had no way to see it live. Reading sports clippings the next day would have to suffice, where I learned Leonard had knocked Finch out in three rounds with little effort.
On May 14, Leonard was scheduled to meet Roger Stafford in Buffalo, New York. I was in Buffalo to watch Ray train in his public workouts, which turned out to be his last one. That afternoon, he stopped his sparring session abruptly and left the ring in the hotel ballroom without a word. His trainers followed, but I didn’t find out for days why he had. It turned out that Leonard had suffered a detached retina, forcing him to stop his training and cancel the bout.
After a summer of speculation and thinking, Ray announced to the world on November 9, 1982 that he was in fact retiring from boxing. It came on the same night that the airline I was working for at the time had filed for bankruptcy, so it was one lousy Tuesday night. My job was gone and my favorite fighter had retired on the same night, so it felt like I had just been knocked out myself.
Sugar Ray remained retired for just about one year, then in December of 1983 announced “I’m Back.” I was ecstatic over his return and couldn’t wait to see who he would fight next. His choice for his comeback fight was Kevin Howard, a ranked junior-middleweight from Philadelphia. Originally scheduled for February 25, 1984, the bout was rescheduled for May 11 in Worcester, Massachusetts after Ray had minor surgery on his eye.
Since the airline I worked for at the time flew to Boston, I hopped a flight, rented a car and drove to Clark University in Worcester to see Ray train. He looked bigger and more muscular, which only helped build my excitement to watch him in action again.
Fortunately for me, my cousin Paul taped the fight on HBO for me, and I picked it up after working second shift at my airline job that Friday night. When I arrived home and popped the VHS tape in my brand new $650 VCR, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
Sugar Ray looked pretty sharp until the fourth round, when out of nowhere a Kevin Howard right hand put him on the seat of his pants. Embarrassed more than hurt, he got up and came out firing the next round. Leonard was in control most of the fight, landing huge body shots on Howard that really slowed him down. After dropping Howard in the ninth, Ray finished his wobbly foe as he held on to the ropes.
While Ray had won the bout, he hadn’t dominated like everyone expected, but to me at least he won. What happened after the fight is what disappointed me more than the bout itself. In a press conference immediately after the TKO win, Leonard announced that he was retiring for good from boxing, and that he just didn’t have it anymore. I was both shocked and sad that one of my all-time favorites was now gone for good. His absence would leave a huge hole in the sport, and there was absolutely no one on the horizon to replace him.
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