The hands of stone aka Roberto Duran gets a bum rap. Here’s a world champion several times over, winner of 103 fights, Boxing Hall of Fame inductee. Yet casual sports fans think of him as that guy who quit. Two words, “No mas,” originally spit out like gargled water between rounds, have long defined Roberto Duran’s popular legacy.
But to boxing people, those two words, mean something very different. In many ways, they affirm Duran’s greatness the way a ten-count affirms a fighter’s dominance. They were his assertion that boxing was a sacred ritual for men. Men who believed that stepping into a ring was not mere entertainment, but something more solid and bedrock. So while the casual fans think of “No mas,” boxing people think of the man called “Manos de Piedra,” or “Hands of Stone.” A devastating alloy of power, speed, technique and confidence. A fighter who deserves to be in the discussion of the all-time greats.
“I’ve been watching boxing now for about fifty years, and Duran is the best fighter I’ve ever seen,” says Charles Farrell, who once managed champions Leon Spinks and Freddie Norwood and is now an award-winning boxing writer for the influential website FightNetwork.com. “Inarguably, better than Ali, better than Ray Leonard.”
Born to a Mexican-American marine and a Panamanian mother and raised in the Chorrillo slum of Panama City, in 1951, Roberto Duran quit school after third grade and hit the streets. His father went back to California early in Duran’s life, and the young Roberto shined shoes and sold newspapers to help his family. In his early teens, he started boxing, emulating his brother and hoping his fists might punch a way out of the barrio.
Duran would make his professional debut in February 1968, at just 16 years of age and win via a unanimous decision. He would go on to win his next bout by a first-round knockout. And the next six the very same way. The fight game revolves around rumors of the “next” so-and-so—the next Ali, the next Marciano. Word quickly spread about the next Sugar Ray Robinson KO’ing his way through Central America. Small, ferocious, and multidimensional, Duran moved in the ring like an assassin. His head movement was second to none. His footwork precise, and he had great defensive skill, that was often overlooked because of his brutal power. He seemingly came by it all naturally. His longtime trainer, Ray Arcel, often said, “I never taught him anything.”
Duran would rattle off 30 wins in a row before his first pro loss, and in 1972, he got his first title shot, against lightweight world champion Ken Buchanan. The fight took place at Madison Square Garden, and Buchanan was a heavy favorite. “Buchanan was in his prime,” Farrell recalls, “and Duran beat him to a pulp. It was the kind of beating that a great old pro would know how to administer.”
Despite losing a non-title fight a few months after the Buchanan bout, Duran successfully defended his world title 12 times. He owned the lightweight division for six years. He was earning money he’d always dreamt of. But it wasn’t enough. His appetite craved more—more money, more fame, more everything. So in 1979, he relinquished his belt and jumped to the welterweight division that offered bigger paydays and higher-profile opponents. Enter Sugar Ray Leonard.
Leonard, gifted, good-looking, and charismatic, was the gold-medal darling of American sports in the late ’70s. While Leonard was good in his own right, he had yet to be really tested, add to that many in boxing circles felt, there was too much glitter. That Leonard was a disco-era circus act, complete with a 100-watt smile and too much dancing around the ring. In Duran’s eyes, and in those of many Latinos, Leonard’s anointing felt unjust, based purely on the fluff of celebrity rather than the elegant calculus of boxing and self-reliance. The “Brawl in Montreal” was scheduled for June 20, 1979. Duran must have relished the delicious irony of the bout’s setting—the same city where Leonard had enjoyed his 1976 Olympic triumph. Duran, snubbing his nose at the U.S. flag-waving media, refused to speak English in the build-up to the fight, and the French-Canadian public loved him for it, and they inspired him to a 15-round unanimous decision that shocked the world.
David Avila, a journalist who grew up in an East L.A. boxing family, recalls the fight as a watershed moment. “When Duran beat Sugar Ray Leonard, who was perceived as ‘America’ by a lot of the Latinos, who were subservient in everything at that time, it was huge,” Avila says. “He was a no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners kind of guy,” Avila says. “We loved him for that. He was macho, very macho.” After growing up with nothing, Duran now had everything. He embraced the trappings of it all, building a reputation for chasing women, drinking, appearing as Rocky Balboa’s sparring partner in Rocky II. He quickly ballooned up, and when the Leonard rematch rolled around six months later, he wasn’t prepared.
Leonard, on the other hand, had learned his lesson in Montreal – do notstand toe-to-toe with Duran. “He felt those hands of stone and knew he couldn’t go in and try to be macho with him,” says former welterweight world champion Jose Rivera, who studied both fights as a young trainee. In the second fight, Leonard moved and danced, evading Duran and getting under hia skin. In the 8th round of a close fight, Duran had enough. “No mas,” he muttered. Duran has attributed it to weakness from his drastic weight loss, but most boxing people believe he simply rejected Leonard’s clownishness. “To me, it’s Duran saying ‘Fuck you. If you want to fight me, I’ll fight you. But I’m not going to let this clown embarrass me,’” Farrell says. “I see it as a gutsy thing to do.”
A subtle act of principled defiance thrills writers and scientists, but the general public rarely gets it. In the wake of the “no mas” debacle, the great puncher became a punchline. Arcel left his camp, at a loss to explain or understand his fighter’s behavior, and Duran himself careened into a disillusionment that kept him out of the ring for nearly a year.
Eventually he laced up his gloves again, and on his 32nd birthday, he got another title shot, against undefeated light middleweight champ Davey Moore. Duran, well past his prime, was not expected to win. But he demolished Moore in eight rounds, setting the stage for a massive match-up with middleweight champ Marvin Hagler. By any estimation, Duran was out of his league when he agreed to challenge Hagler, who resembled a Hollywood thug with a gladiator’s physique. Duran, over-the-hill and markedly smaller than Hagler, astounded the world by going the full 15 rounds before losing by decision. His performance recaptured the world’s respect. His next fight, however, was the worst of his career: a second-round knockout by Thomas Hearns. He had repeated the mistake of the second Leonard fight by coming in out of shape, and Hearns’ stand-up long-reach style flummoxed Duran for the first time in his career. To most people, he was done.
A year and a half later, at 35, Roberto Duran tiptoed back into the ring, starting with some easy fodder in his hometown. His power was gone, but he still had his skills, and he quietly began putting some wins together. Eventually, he did enough to receive a date with Iran Barkley, the WBC middleweight champ. “I was there, in Atlantic City and there was a tremendous energy in the air,” Farrell recalls. The energy flowed through Duran, who pounded Barkley for 12 rounds and won a split decision. “I was in awe,” Rivera says. “They said he was done, then he comes back and beats Barkley the way he did.”
It was Duran’s last hurrah. The Barkley fight got him a second rematch with Leonard. But Duran couldn’t put it together in the ring and he lost by unanimous decision. At this point, though he continued to fight and win against decent competition, Duran’s career was mostly finished. A car accident in Argentina in 2001 forced him to hang up his gloves forever. His final record an incredible 103-16, with 70 knockouts. Ask any car accident lawyer and they will tell you, this is a far from uncommon situation to find oneself in!
In 2002, Ring Magazine named Duran the fifth best fighter of the previous 80 years. In 2007, Roberto Duran was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. An honor that seemed to do more than just validate his career; it officially forgave him for No Mas and allowed him once again to be his homeland’s champion. “My country is being inducted as well,” he said, shawled in the Panamanian flag during his induction speech. “The country where I was born, where I live, and where I will die. I’m happy, proud.”
In retirement, Duran has stayed low-key, splitting time between Miami and his beloved Panama. He’s dabbled in fight promotion, built a reputation for charity and goodwill in his homeland, and supported his daughter, Irichelle, a professional boxer.
Today, Duran is still Panama’s most famous athlete, perhaps its most famous citizen. The Nueva Panama Coliseum, site of many of Duran’s early fights, has been renamed Roberto Duran Coliseum. In August of this year he will be headed to big screen as the the biopic Hands of Stone starring Edgar Ramirez as Roberto Duran and Robert DeNiro as Ray Arcel will be released. Perhaps, allowing the entire world to get a 360 view of Duran, his career and life outside the ring.
