You want strange? This was strange. First, 16,000 people sitting on metal bleachers in a Las Vegas hotel parking lot cheer when the announcer tells them they spent a collective $9 million to watch a fight.
Then, approximately 45 minutes later, they're elbowing each other to leave early. Like it's a Jazz-Clippers game in the Salt Palace.By the time the fight was over, only about two-thirds of the crowd remained - roughly a mere $6 million worth.
Such was the shelf life of Leonard-Duran III Thursday night at the Mirage Hotel. Short. This was the fight that had everything - except a punch.
For almost 10 years, Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Duran was a much-anticipated rematch. In less than an hour Thursday night the rematch collapsed under its own weight, remaining something of a mirage itself. There were better fights at the exits as fans who'd paid ticket prices scaled from $100 to $800 fought their way outta there even as Leonard and Duran were still on the stage, waltzing the night away.
Many started chanting "Refund!" "Refund!" "Refund!" by the seventh round. By then it was obvious that the two fighters were acting their combined age of 71.
Especially was this true of the 38-year-old Duran, who didn't exactly strike a blow for resiliency as he kept throwing out punches and kept connecting with the cool Nevada air. Trucks on the nearby freeway felt his wrath as much as Sugar Ray.
By fight's end he had thrown 588 punches and landed 84 of them - a cool 14.3 percent. The 33-year-old Leonard, on the other hand, threw 438 punches and landed 227 - a warmer 51.8 percent. He was efficient if not destructive.
He was also elusive. Duran got a better look at Bo Derek and Michael Jackson, who were seated safely at courtside (although not together). He spent 12 rounds just trying to find Leonard, let alone hit him.
Since he was winning every round anyway, Leonard was content to bob and weave and hide, interspersed by two or three lightning fast combinations that left little doubt as to who was in control here and at least kept the crowd from turning into a lynch mob.
As it was, the crowd contented itself with throwing out a variety of sarcastic insults. Hey, you buy your $800 ticket, you're entitled. They got chants going with words like "boring," and others, not all of them printable. They asked for somebody else. "Michael Nunn." "Michael Jackson." "Ali." Anyone? Anyone? One fan, dressed for the occasion in a full blue leather outfit - accessorized by blue shoes, blue socks, blue turtleneck, blue everything except for his necklaces, watches, bracelets and rings, which were gold - finally screamed, "There's $9 million in here, and we ain't seen $200 worth of fighting!"
Another shouted, "This fight got two winners and 16,000 losers."
Leonard figures to make around $15 million, after closed circuit and pay-per-view TV revenues are totaled; Duran around $9 million - or about $100,000 for every punch he happened to land.
One of them came in the 11th round, when a Duran right had the audacity to cut Leonard's face. Afterward, Leonard admitted that he allowed that slight amount of damage because he was trying to mix it up to appease the restless crowd.
"I think what they wanted to see was pretty much a Hagler-Hearns type of a brawl," he said, referring to the memorable rumble waged by Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Thomas "Hit Man" Hearns in Las Vegas several years ago that lasted less than three rounds and is known in boxing lore as the "Eight minutes of hell."
"But that's not my forte," shrugged Leonard. "With me, it's a matter of what got me this far. I'm not Hearns. I'm not Hagler. I'm proud of my performance. I'm pleased with my performance - I'll tell you, that's how it goes."
Duran said he wanted to fight but couldn't. "I knew Leonard was going to come here and clown around," he said through an interpreter. "He didn't come to fight, he came to run. The referee didn't let me do nothin'." To say nothing of his fists.
Neither fighter announced his retirement, which was surprising, since inactions can speak louder than words. But it goes without saying that they'll now forever be retired from another. If Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran got in a ring together again they either wouldn't draw mosquitoes, or they'd draw a bunch of people with a rope.
As Bob Arum, the fight's promoter, said after the smoke, such as it was, had cleared Thursday night; "Obviously, their styles don't mesh."
With true promoter prudence, he saw fit not to say so until after the gate was safely counted.