Joe Calzaghe Tête-À-Tête with Sugar Ray

In London earlier this week Sugar Ray Leonard had a conversation with Joe Calzaghe in which he recalled mistakes made when he fought Roberto Duran for the welterweight championship of the world in Montreal in the summer of 1980.

Leonard interrupted a British tour of speaking engagements to advise Calzaghe at a hotel in London. The meeting came less than 48 hours after the Welsh IBF and WBO super-middleweight champion won a rough victory over Sakio Bika in Manchester on Saturday that left Calzaghe with a cut and a badly bruised face.

Leonard who won world titles from welterweight to light-heavyweight said: “It reminded me of the first time I fought Duran. I got cut and it helped to put me out my stride. I went toe to toe with Duran when my trainer Angelo Dundee was telling me to box.”

This isn’t entirely fair to Duran. His manager, a Panamanian millionaire Carlos Eleta, hired the best American trainers money could buy, Freddie Brown and Ray Arcel.

Both had been around boxing for more than 50 years. Brown, with a face like a battered ear, was seventy-three, Arcel, hugely respected in the business, was eighty-two when Duran and Leonard fought for Leonard’s title.

In the nine years they’d been working with Duran , he had become a very good defensive fighter, learning to pick off punches as he came in and to minimize the effect of solid blows by bobbing his head and twisting his torso while fighting inside: he also developed his left hand as a significant weapon and to set up his devastating right.

Leonard had strong chin but it was not in Dundee’s fight plan to have Leonard prove how tough he was. You go 15 rounds with Duran you take some heavy shots. But you certainly don’t want to get into a brawl.

Ignoring Dundee’s advice, Leonard astonishingly chose to fight on Duran’s terms as if to prove that he had as much heart for the raw extremities of boxing. After 15 rounds, the exchanges unrelentingly bitter, Duran was declared the new champion. “I fought the wrong fight,” Leonard told Calzaghe. “There was too much ego involved. It wasn’t Ray Leonard in there but some guy trying to prove something.”

As Duran came forward to try and get inside Dundee didn’t want Leonard to be in front of him but to step quickly left or right and throw punches from the side. Leonard’s vastly superior foot and hand would have to come into play for the plan to work. Dundee was confident that if Leonard carried out the plan, he had the style and the tools to get the job done.

As Leonard told Calzaghe, he did not fight the fight Dundee had planned. Leonard did not fight a smart fight at all. He fought according to his own lights and made an elemental mistake. In his excellent book Sugar Ray Leonard and Other Noble Warriors, Sam Toperoff wrote: “Ray opted to brawl and maul, slug and mug with the man who had written the book on such tactics. To the consternation of his brains trust and over their urgings and objections, Leonard fought Duran’s fight.”

Calzaghe made a similar mistake against Bika who came to brawl and was repeatedly warned for dangerous use of his head. In his previous contest against Jeff Lacy, who arrived with a big reputation, Calzaghe had boxed brilliantly, performing so well that many felt he had proved himself the best post-war British fighter.

Bika is no Duran but Calzaghe made the mistake of trying to impress HBO. When he wasn’t trying to mix it with Bika he resorted to showboating much to the annoyance of his promoter Frank Warren who made his way from a ringside seat to Calzaghe’s corner.

At 34, Calzaghe has an unbeaten record that now runs to 40 fights. There is talk of trying to persuade the 40-year old Bernard Hopkins out of retirement, but the former champion’s purse demands would probably be prohibitive.

In the meantime Calzaghe should pay serious attention to the words of wisdom imparted by Leonard.