Ray Leonard's autobiography

That's genius.

 

I see what McGrain is talking about. Lawrence Taylor (probably foreign to a lot of you Euro guys) did the same thing in his auto-bio when it came to admitting faults and coming clean. It's sort of half-ass.

 

Great Book, but the whole molestation thing is kind of hard to talk about.

 

Whats the Title?

I`ll probably buy it. Havent had a good boxing book in awhile.

 

He's not the first athlete to have had to deal with molestation.

And given how many of them ended up, SRL seems to have managed 'greatness' in spite of adversity that would have derailed a good many others.

I think most people underestimate the toll that such incidents can take.


As for the book, he's hardly Winston Churchill or Marcel Proust, and he occasionally (IMO) resorts to revisionism, especially around the Duran Montreal bout, but it does provide a bit of insight into how his career unfolded.

It needs to be read in context and in concert with other sources.

 

I want to get it soon. I read 4 kings about Duran, Hearns,Hagler and Leonard.

 

"I began to wonder whether the fury I somtimes displayed in the ring, which is most uncharacteristic of my true nature, might be traced to these incidents (of molestation) as much as the fighting between my parents.
I do not know. I am not a psychologist.
I do know that I was in a lot of pain as I chased my dream of winning the gold." - Page 41

"I could not have engaged in such despicable behavior without a little help, and I am not referring to James Anderson or any of the boys. I am referring to the presence of alchohol, and eventually cocaine, which began to take over my life during the early eighties.
There I go again, searching for a convenient scapegoat. If it wasn't my evil twin, Sugar Ray, the booze or drugs had to be responsible for my transgressions. The fact is that I put those substances into my body, me, Ray Charles Leonard, not some character I invented." - Page 192

Seems pretty forthright and honest to me. No mention of blaming anyone other than himself.

 

You would laugh to your friends about some guy placing his mouth on your *****? Really? It's more than 'a bit ****ed up.'
And it was not just 'some guy' either, but a boxing coach, whom he trusted and respected.
Maybe he should have joked about it with his mates at the pub, as you would have done?

I don't care if you're 8, 18 or 80, that's got to be a disturbing and traumatic experience for anyone.

And read the paragraph I quoted in the post above. He didn't directly blame that incident for anything, but merely speculated if that's one of the reasons why he fought with fury at times in his fights.

 

But that's exactly it...a lot of the book, especially that line above, is also swimming in irony. Bitter irony.

The way I read the book, is that he used one excuse after another and blamed everyone other than himself at the time, and upon reflection, many years later, he can see that the only person to blame for his behaviour was himself.
It's a reflective look back at his life, where he casts his mind back to how he viewed things at the time.

To me, the book is really about the duality of his life at the time. There was Ray, the quiet pacifist who avoided trouble, and Sugar Ray, the confident killer and playboy. The liar and deceiver.

Obviously the same guy, but different parts to his personality. Sugar Ray being the persona, Ray the person. To the hangers-on and the fans, he was Sugar Ray, to those closest to him , just Ray.
I think we all have that, to some degree.

I read the book with the full understanding of what he was getting at when he said things like 'Ray Leonard couldn't, but Sugar Ray could.'
Same guy, different aspects of his character.

Again, the bolded part of my post, where he said it was he, not some character he invented, that was responsible for his behaviour is a reflective look back at how, at the time, he would conveniently blame 'Sugar Ray' for the bad stuff, where in reality it was always just Ray.
It's an admission really, many years later, that there was nobody to blame but himself all along.

I think that's really where you and I totally diverge...you seem to think he's still using 'Sugar Ray' as a scapegoat, whereas I feel that he is taking us back to how he saw things at the time, and upon reflection, is holding up his hands and saying 'That was bull****.'

 

That's what I thought he was doing. That's the way I read it.
I guess we're just going to have to go our seperate ways on this one.

 

The one part of the book I took exception to was when he claimed he reached out to grab Juanita during an argument and cut her forehead with his ring.
I've read other reports that state it was from either a slap or a punch. So maybe that part was dishonest.

 

He loved to hit Juanita, that's for sure.What he did to her before their wedding was despicable.