In 1994 Ken Buchanan went to New York to look for Roberto Duran

Four days before the fight I have been getting good write-ups from the Japaneese press. They have come along and watched me sparring with the partners supplied by the promoters. They are so impressed they are actually writing Guts Ishimatsu off...he had been well beaten by Laguna a man I had beaten twice...that hardly counts for anything on the night of the fight...

Just to point out that Ken is talking about using the sparring partners that Ishimatsu's promoters have laid on for him. If Ken had a manager we would be screaming bloody murder at his negligence. By this point, Ken was managing himself, basically to save on the manager's cut. Here is where a manager would have earned his keep.

..the last night of sparring me, my dad and my second were taken to a different gym. I should have clocked on that there was something going on, especially with teh fast moves that had been pulled on me already in teh boxing game over the years. But as I have said, I was always an easy target when I was concentrating on the fight and my fitness.

Here Ken actually admits his shortcomings as manager...and his only client is himself. Seems a great shame. I wonder if with proper management he would have suffered the way he did here, and if he could have made the Duran rematch.

I noticed something different. I peered at the guy across the other end of the ring. My sparring partner had put on a good few pounds and a pair of platform shoes - he had suddenly grown six inches. I asked what had happened to my other sparring partner at work. They said he had hurt himself at work

My new sparring partner wasn't exactly trying to knock me out, but there was something up. There's a certain look in their eyes and movement in their bodies when you know they are doing more than sparring. In the third round this guy threw a left - as I was slipping it over my shoulder he rooled his thumb into me eye socket. Ya *******! It was really sore. There was nothing I could do. Before you could say "Muhammad Ali" my left eye was giving me pain. I went right for him. I punched him foru or five times and he dropped to his knees...I jumped out of the ring. My eye was swollen so badly my dad took me to the hospital there and then.

At the hospital we discovered air had blown my eye up. The doctor put some padding on the lump and bandaged my face tightly so that the pressure on the lump would push the air out from under my eye. Now I couldn't do any kind of light training at all...I had to hide it from the press [to protect the gate].

My dad asked for the fight to be put back a week - no chance.





Sorry to bang on but I do feel that a good manager would



1 - Have veted sparring partners or arranged for his own.

2 - Refused to allow his man to spar with this massive unkown a few days before the fight at a closed gym

3 - Allowed the spar to continue in to three rounds if the fighter/others thought there was something odd in the sparring partners conduct.

4 - Pulled Ken immediatly upon recieveing the injury rather than allowing him to attack the other man!

5 - Demanded a postponement.

6 - Taken details to the press if that postponement was denied.