8701170438 DETROIT FREE PRESS 870408 Wednesday, April 08, 1987 STATE EDITION

SPT

1D Photo United Press International MITCH ALBOM Copyright (c) 1987, Detroit Free Press A BRILLIANT FIGHT, A BRILLIANT CON LAS VEGAS -- Sugar Ray Leonard was hanging on the shoulders of his trainers, his legs stringy, he expression dazed, and Marvin Hagler was doing a bugaloo shuffle in the middle of the ring. This was the paradox of what they're calling "the greatest return in boxing history," because in seconds, Leonard would be crowned the winner by split decision, the new middleweight champion, the comeback kid of all time, and Hagler, the guy doing the dance, would be thrown to the wolves. "Oh, Jesus . . . " Hagler would cry when the decision was announced, his seven-year middleweight reign suddenly over. "Oh, come on . . . come on . . . I won this fight! . . . they stole it . . . come on! . . . " He was babbling, walking in circles, he still looked strong, his muscles taut, his stomach braided steel. His face was clean, bloodless after 12 rounds, as was Leonard's, but Leonard was exhausted over in the other corner, and his mother was kissing him and then his wife was kissing him and the cameras worked their way through the crowd and suddenly, almost imperceptibly, he seemed to straighten, and then he winked, and you knew he'd had this thing all along. Glory days for wit and wisdom. In the aftermath of this boxing match, Hagler and his camp would blame the 12 rounds -- mandated by the World Boxing Council, though other championship fights are usually 15 -- and they would say Marvin was the aggressor, and they would point to Sugar Ray's brief collapse after the final bell as evidence that their man was better. "He was dead on his feet!" Hagler would moan. "He couldn't have gone another round." But he didn't need to. Know this. Leonard was exhausted because he executed his plan perfectly, he traced the blueprint, used the last drop of gas in the tank -- he should have been exhausted -- while Hagler was left with a boxer's cursed possession, a surplus of strength. He had plenty left. He could have knocked out 10 men, but he had lost the fight, without a cut, without a knockdown, without a single punch that even registered a stun. How could it be that Leonard, inactive for two years, with only two bouts in the last five years, could move up a weight class and steal the belt right off of Hagler's plate? Easy. He used his head. This fight was all but over before it started. Sugar Ray Leonard had haunted Marvin Hagler's sleep for years. Like a wallflower watching a prom queen, Leonard seemed to Hagler all he could never be -- glib, witty, a sweetly heroic persona with a face for TV and an Olympic gold medal to get him there. And what was Marvin? A wolf. He scared people. He was brooding, silent, bald-headed with a goatee. Women and children never approached him the way they would approach Sugar Ray. Hagler had no medal, he was off the streets, the Newark ghettos, school was history by 11th grade and when he started fighting in Pat and Goody Petronelli's gym in Brockton, Mass., it was strictly small-time, earn your way up. He got 50 bucks for his first pro fight. In another life, Hagler and Leonard might never have met. But in boxing they reached a peak like two men climbing two different sides of the same mountain. Hagler fought twice as often and made half as much, and every time he saw Sugar Ray, sweet Sugar Ray, dancing Sugar Ray, popular Sugar Ray, he was just waiting for the chance to face this little squirt in the only place they might be equal. And then Leonard retired in 1982, eye problems, and Hagler ached. He sat there at Leonard's retirement press conference. "It'll never happen," Leonard said to him of their bout. Hagler's chance was gone. He fought others, beat them, made money, but it was like dancing with every girl except the one you really want. So when the talk started last year that Leonard -- after several years as a TV commentator -- wanted a fight, one fight, only with Hagler, those who really knew the champion knew it was a yes. Monday night they discovered what Leonard suspected all along. Those five years had done more for Sugar Ray than he could have dreamed. With every victory during that time, Hagler had been looking for the kind of adulation Leonard had once commanded -- and he never got it. The people he beat! Duran. Hearns. Mugabi. Yet, he was still Hagler. Still the scary warrior. This gnawed at him. In Hagler's mind, Leonard was now more than an opponent, he was a demon, a nightmare, an uncatchable stallion. And just as the wallflower feels she could never replace the queen, so did Hagler, in the dungeons of his heart, sense he somehow did not deserve to take over Leonard's pedestal. Sugar Ray was now larger than life. When the fight began Monday night, Hagler didn't throw a punch for 30 seconds. Leonard taunted him right off, first refusing to look at him during the traditional hand shake, then refusing to look away. Leonard scored with the first combination, then flitted out like a bug. For that round and the next and the next, Leonard was pure motion. He drew Hagler in jerky motion, as if attached by a loose string. He played peek- a-boo, he stuck his chin out. In the fourth, he suckered Hagler with a punch to the right kidney. The crowd roared. Hagler was off-balance, switching between righty and southpaw, missing badly, and never once landing a truly painful punch. Understand the psychology at work here. Leonard was acting out all the things Hagler hated him for, the showboating, the quickness, the fluid grace. The more he did this, the more angry Hagler became. And the more anger, the better for Sugar Ray. "If he goes back to his corner shaking his head," Leonard had said last week, "then I've got him." He had him. That early. The judges awarded the first four rounds to Leonard, so right there, if this was going the distance, Sugar Ray had money in the bank. Hagler continued to stalk him relentlessly, throwing punches for Leonard's head, not his body. Body shots would have been smarter, more effective in the long run, they would have slowed Leonard down, but Hagler wanted a definitive statement. He wanted to kill the devil, once and for all. In the fifth round, Hagler landed punches, he shortened the ring, he won the round, but in the sixth, he got Leonard in a corner and still couldn't score. The emotion of the long wait, the years, the buildup, seemed to hit Hagler like a sudden injection, and while Leonard could not hurt him, he could not unleash any bombs himself. So for much of the round, much of the fight really, they were at a dance, chasing and flicking and tap-tap-tap, get in, get out, circle, flurry, take one, give one, and this was Sugar Ray's type of fight and Hagler knew it. At one point in the seventh round, Hagler stuck his tongue out at Leonard, a remarkable gesture for him, but he was trying to beat Leonard at his own game, showmanship, and that was fatal. And then came the ninth. This is where the sky caved in. Four times Leonard engaged Hagler in toe-to-toe exchanges, and four times Leonard danced away with little damage. It was reckless on Sugar Ray's part, for until that point he had seemed to be tiring, his tricks had diminished, he was taking a chance with Hagler's aim, but each time he escaped those flying fists, the crowd erupted. Leonard lost that round on two of three cards, but he had done enough. He had his second wind. Victory was just three rounds away. In Hagler's corner, they were worried. They had been this route before, against Vito Antuofermo in 1979, Hagler's first title shot, and it went the distance and Hagler should have won but it was called a draw. "I told Marvin stay aggressive," Goody Petronelli would say. "I told him we needed it." That only seemed to make it worse. Leonard was in his element now, sensing victory. He ducked under a bad miss by Hagler and snuck up from behind and hit him in the head. The punches didn't hurt, none of them hurt, but they were humiliating to Hagler. Sugar Ray took the 11th, and before the 12th, the final round, he raised his hands in apparent victory and taunted Hagler to come to the center of the ring. He wanted to shake his hand. Three minutes later it was over. Hagler claims Leonard came up to him and said "You beat me, man," and that is what prompted his boogaloo dance. But when the decision was read, it was two judges for Leonard, one for Hagler. Somebody named Jo Jo Guerra actually scored it 118-110 for Leonard, giving Hagler just two rounds. "That guy ought to be in jail," Pat Petronelli would say. "We were jobbed." They are arguing this morning over who really won, but that should not be in dispute, because when you out-fox, out-dance, out-punch and out-maneuver your opponent, and when you flit away from the most dangerous exchanges, when you make him miss, when you escape without a bruise, you should be the winner. Don't you think? You don't have to knock him out. But the question is how much do you have to do before you steal a champion's crown? Apparently, Leonard did enough. He did all that Hagler feared. His sweetness was his talon. The taunts were his claws. The flurry of punches, no matter how meaningless, his wings. In the end, Sugar Ray Leonard simply flew away from Marvin Hagler, left him still as a tractor in the mud. CUTLINE: Sugar Ray Leonard leaps after hearing the decision.