The people who paid to watch that on closed circuit television broadcast must have been very very annoyed. Never mind the people who paid to be in the arena. Leonard's clowning was absolutely bizarre .... and then the other guy just upped and quit like a bum. Someone should have had Antonio Inoki and Wilt Chamberlain on standby to go 10 rounds tag team against Tex Cobb and Chuck Norris. Give the punters their money's worth at least.
Duran embarrassingly quits/gets the hell outta there, due to frustration & lack of a champions heart. Disgraceful. Still a great fighter, but he can't live that down.
One of the greatest unforeseeable unexcusable, unbelievable, events in boxing history. Duran, though he did go on to somewhat redeem himself, will never be able to ever live that 10-15 seconds of insanity down. Casual fans who know nothing about Duran, and his ATG career, one of the top 10 best boxers of all time , know about the "No Mas". Fight. A unfortunate mistake that will always shadow a truly legendary career.
To be fair the referee did try to ignore Duran at first. He thought Duran must be kidding. Does anyone know how long it took for Duran to get to the nearest toilet ? Did he make it in time ? It shouldn't have come to this. When the Marquis of Queensberry devised his rules and settled on a minute's break between rounds he had been well informed that a trained fighters bowel movement's in a pressing situation were fast enough to deal with it in 60 seconds, and buckets are provided. Then again, that was an age before over-processed foods and there was a good deal more fibre in a pugilist's diet back then.
dosen't have a champions heart??? Never will live it down???? Don't make me laugh! Its barely even a blip on one of the greatest fighters of all times career! He didn't **** or kill anyone.
You know in a strange way this fight really added to the Duran legend over time. When this fight is discussed all the focus is on Roberto Duran not Leonard. Though Duran said he never said No Mas, as you say, the casual fan knows it's meaning. It's a phrase added to the American lexicon of sports and cultural history as unexpected a result as possible, why? Americans simply love the comeback, the redemption story, and this was a stupendous comeback. When Duran lost to Benitez and Kirkland Laing ,looking terrible doing it, was it even remotely possible he'd beat a young strong Moore for the jr. middleweight title then go 15 with Hagler? Did anyone think he'd be the middleweight champion at 38 years of age? This caused his legend to grow
Yep, watched this on closed/circuit at the Springfield Civic Center - Leonard looked awesome, but thought Duran would catch him at some point; when the ref waved Leonard off and he raised his hands, that was it - the broadcast cut off, same as when Ali was stopped during the Holmes debacle. No post fights or anything ... I was not happy