Sugar Ray Leonard tells me his favorite boxing movie is The Champ, made in 1979. I’ve never seen it, so I sit down to watch it right away. It’s all right there. Didn’t philosopher Roland Barthes call boxing a Jansenist sport? (You know: original sin, the divine intervention of God’s Grace, all of that? The meaning there being that it’s a contest of flawed characters. Winning is redemption, and redemption is the great comeback story.) ‘The champ’ is a retired boxer who lives at a racetrack, takes care of his son (Ricky Schroder!), but drinks and gambles with their happiness. The boy’s estranged mother returns and it sets in motion the champ’s final comeback fight, to win a better life for his son. He wins the fight, but the injuries cost him his life. In every scene, the son simply refers to his father as ‘The Champ’.
Leonard, by the way, wants it to be clear, no matter what, that he really did slip during his 1978 fight with Dicky Eklund (immortalized in 2010’s movie The Fighter). And he’s been kissed by Michelle Obama. We’re on the phone while he’s in the car on his to give a speech as part of the publicity tour for his book, a memoir called The Big Fight: My Life in and out of the Ring. It chronicles everything from Leonard’s childhood to his retirement(s). It confronts for the first time incidents of sexual abuse he endured that previously he’d just run from, and also his struggles with alcohol, cocaine, fatherhood and infidelity.
He tells me he’s going to call his old friend and rival Tommy Hearns after he gets off the phone with me. They haven’t had a chance to talk in a while. He adds laughingly that Hearns is always asking him what he weighs.
It’s as if one last comeback is a shared joke they’ll always have together. But I think what Ray Leonard was saying to me was this: you’ve got to have a comeback. That’s boxing’s inside joke, the only story that it’s really got to tell is the comeback. Of course, Leonard’s career was punctuated by a great comeback fight. He won thebiggest fight of his professional career against Marvin Hagler after having been out of the ring for 5 years. Hagler belonged to Leonard because Leonard’s resume needed a redemptive comeback. But Sugar Ray wasn’t going to die in the ring, because he had more comebacks in him. He wanted to comeback from his past trauma, from his own character flaws. That why’s he written the book.
You’re always talking about the two sides of everything, the two sides of you. I remember that opening passage of your book. Right before a fight you’re wondering who is going to show up: Is it Ray Leonard or is it Sugar Ray?
It sounds schizoid, but that was so real to me. When I looked in the mirror to see who’d show up, or who was showing up, or who’s present. Because there’s two sides of me. The guy that you’re talking to now would never think about getting into the ring. But Sugar Ray, I couldn’t wait man, I was so excited. You know, I was ecstatic. You know it’s euphoria for me, for a fighter, to engage. But as a person I am laid back, reserved, and just kind of quiet.
I need both of them probably. I need Sugar Ray because Sugar Ray pays the rent. But Ray is the guy, you know, my parents raised.
Is it easy for you to open up now about how uncomfortable confrontation makes you? You mention frequently throughout your book how you would never let on about a weakness of any sort to an opponent.
Oh yeah, I’m getting better because, you know, of my therapist. But confrontations, it could be confrontation with my friends, confrontation with my kids, confrontation with my wife, confrontation with my parents or my siblings. I mean, I was really, really bad. Slowly but surely, I’m still working on the process, I’m getting to that point (where I can) be more confrontational. Verbally confrontational, not physically.
You wrote that getting sober was the final step that let you write this book. Do you see it as a continuation of that process? I’m understanding the fact that as of July 4th it’s been 5 years of sobriety.
But it’s not just the alcohol. It’s also my own character defects. The confrontations, being a good husband, being honest; it’s all those things. For the most part, that’s you, that’s me. That’s Ray Leonard trying to be a better person. One thing I learned in this AA program is how to pause. Because I used to react, like a fighter. You throw a punch I’d throw a punch back, a counter punch. Now I can drop my guard a little bit and really digest what you just said to me. Does that make sense?
You must have a really confessional relationship with Michael Arkush who co-wrote the book with you. Was it strange to tell him such a personal story?
Michael Arkush is a very special guy. He gave me time to tell my story. He didn’t push it, because even if he pushed it I wouldn’t have went there. It just took time. He just knew how to kind of navigate the waters with me until I felt comfortable enough with him to reveal really, really deep stuff. My oldest son Ray Jr. was upset with me last week because he was bombarded by getting these phone calls from friends, family members saying ‘what the hell was this, I didn’t know anything about this? Tell me about this.’ Because he didn’t know. He didn’t know. He wasn’t privy to what happened with his father.
I recall that I woke up one morning about when everything broke about the sexual abuse and the drugs, everything, and I was… I got very emotional. My wife said ‘what’s wrong’ and I looked at her and said ‘I’m free’. And my youngest son Daniel who is ten-years-old—he got into bed with us that night—just looked at me and hugged me and said, ‘It’s gonna be okay Pappa.’ And that’s what it’s all about.
I loved your cameo in The Fighter.
Oh yeah. By the way, I really did slip, okay?
Okay. What’s your favorite boxing movie?
I love Rocky. I love Raging Bull. I love Requiem For a Heavyweight. And a movie I cry every time: The Champ.
I haven’t seen that.
Oh man, what’s his name. What’s the guy’s name in The Champ? She’s married to Brad Pitt. Angelina Jolie, her father. Jon Voight. Jon Voight.
Okay, I will have to see that for sure.
Check that out.
