DURÁN VS. LEONARD I (The Brawl in Montreal): JUNE 20, 1980.

Olympic Stadium, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.​ Sugar Ray Leonard stages the second defense of his WBC Welterweight Championship. He comes in as a 9-5 favorite.

Bob Arum, Leonard’s promoter: Ray was the big American hero, and [then] there was Durán. Here was this Latino who nobody could make much out of, except he was a real force of nature. But it really was the American hero against this strange Latino guy.

Roberto Durán: My manager Carlos Eleta told me one day, “Durán, do you know there is a boxer who is a sensation among the gringos? He is a star and a tremendous boxer. Do you want to fight him for a world title?” “Why not? Of course,” I told him. “He is very fast,” Eleta said. “Screw that he’s fast. Blah,” I told him. And that’s how the fight got done.

Sugar Ray Leonard: He wasn’t even on my radar screen. I never thought about fighting Durán because he was a lightweight and there was such a weight deficit.

Bob Arum: One of the doctors detected a heart murmur after examining Roberto in Montreal. The Durán crew immediately assumed that Leonard was backing out of the fight and this was a contrived thing, so Eleta flew up a heart specialist from Panama. I remember being at the hospital where they examined Durán and gave him a clean bill of health, and [remember] the doctor running down the hall yelling, “Hay pelea! Hay pelea! There is a fight!”