The legendary Roberto Mano de Piedra Durán, 72 years old, has been between life and death since the weekend in a hospital in Panama City, where he is loved so much and everything is forgiven. The family and the president of the World Boxing Council have asked all fans and admirers – including myself – to “keep him in your prayers.” To God praying and with the hammer giving: I have seen again that first Roberto Durán-Sugar Ray Leonard from 1980, one of the most intense fights in history.
While Hand of Stone, very punished – he retired late, very late –, somewhat notorious, tries to save his life, the current heroes of the ring are called McGregor or Ilia Topuria, although I am not very convinced that a luck can be called a ring cage, so different from the sixteen ropes (it has been years since we left behind the twelve ropes, synonymous with boxing). It doesn’t matter: they take these UFC fights, where one fighter can hit another who is lying helpless on the canvas…
In those fifteen rounds, Roberto Durán was a machine of dealing and fitting until he dismantled the undefeated Sugar Ray Leonard, the apple of the eye of the US fans. Durán seemed crude – he lacked manners, without a doubt – but he fought fifteen rounds. as if his life depended on him, not one step back. Tense year in relations between the United States and the Panama of General Omar Torrijos, whom Adolfo Suárez admired so much, due to the litigation over the Canal, so the victory at the Mano de Piedra points was celebrated in the streets like never before. I had celebrated nothing. The closest thing to Maradona’s goal with his hand against England in Mexico 86, revenge for the Malvinas.
What difference is there in terms of brutality between that Mano de Piedra and this exalted Ilia Topuria, feted at the Bernabéu and received at La Moncloa, as if he were a Pedro Carrasco or a José Legrá? Surely, few. Durán and Leonard shook hands so much! But we never, ever saw them hitting a rival already on the ground, as if instead of winning a fight it was about crushing him. Just because of that difference, it is difficult to understand – for me, I must be an idiot – this madness, perhaps temporary, for the UFC fights, so extreme and where it is so difficult to see that noble background of boxing (yes, I know that that night Mano de Piedra went crazy before hearing the verdict for fear of the judges’ scores and seemed willing to continue attacking Ray Leonard’s entire corner, not counting the gestures to the public). Sentimentality, surely. Now I only see one fighter annihilating another. I do not know…
