John Maddens Journeys: Sugar Ray Seals and Sugar Ray Leonard Special

This was just uploaded today and I'm sure it's become a somewhat obscure foot note in boxing history by now, what with the lack of rebroadcasting and availability of boxing material in general. I've never seen it previously on youtube, so this might just be surfacing for the first time in a long time. Always good to unearth gems like this. Anyways...

It's an extremely interesting look into the career of two Sugar Rays, both gold medalists in Olympic games just four years apart, and the wildly different ways in which they were managed, handled and treated in the pro game. In Leonard's debut he was making 10 times the amount of Seals average purse.

There's a lot of footage of Seals looking absolutely sensational here, as an amateur and pro. Multiple vicious knockouts where you could legitimately count to 20. I had never heard of Seals being such a hitter but he appears to of been a real force at one time.

I had never heard the story of Seals thinking the Hagler fight was a friendly spar for charity... It sound true to me, with Seals not muddying the water that he did indeed lose, but he was simply caught off guard. If true, I'm not sure what kind of light that puts Hagler or his camp in. Kind of a scumbag move, isn't it?

Anyway, anyone remember seeing this broadcast back in the day?

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No problem, it's a great piece. I was mostly drawn in by the tragic story of Seals. Some pretty riveting stuff.

 

What’s more, he is penniless. “He owns only what I give him,” says Ed Garner, his equally destitute manager, who professes a lifetime commitment to the blind fighter. Worse still, Seales is $100,000 in debt to assorted doctors and hospitals. Even efforts to extract him from the abyss seem doomed—scuttled by the Fates, or maybe just by the ineptitude of the people who have surrounded him throughout his once-promising career. Hearing of Seales’ plight, Sammy Davis Jr. brought his Las Vegas show to the Tacoma Dome last month for a benefit performance. “He’s got all three Bs,” said Davis. “He’s black, blind and broke. I got two of them myself.” Somehow, the benefit managed to lose $25,000.

 

No problem, enjoy it?

 

Bump.