Roberto Duran doesn't look like a man going to a farewell gathering, and he isn't talking like one either.
Sure, the 45-year-old former world champion in four weight classes has said he'll retire if he loses to Hector Camacho on Saturday at Trump's Taj Mahal, but he said, "I'm not going to lose."Duran looks trim.
He said he weighed 157 pounds Thursday, but he expected to be at 159, one pound under the middleweight limit, for the 12-round match that will be shown on pay-per-view.
Duran, who's weighed from 163 to 171 pounds in his last 14 fights, will be at or under 160 pounds for the first time since he outpointed Iran Barkley on Feb. 24, 1989 for the WBC middleweight title he never defended. He's also held the undisputed lightweight, WBC welterweight and WBA junior middleweight titles in a career that spans 29 years and 108 fights (97-11, 67 knockouts).
Also on the card will be the comeback fight of James "Buster" Douglas, the only man to beat Mike Tyson.
The scheduled 10-round match against Tony La Rosa will be Douglas' first since he was knocked out in the third round by Evander Holyfield on Oct. 25, 1990. That was Douglas' first defense of the undisputed heavyweight championship he won with his shocking 10th-round knockout of Tyson on Feb. 11 of that year.
Douglas, whose weight ballooned to over 350 pounds during retirement and was told that he had to reduce after going into a diabetic coma in 1994, is expected to weigh about 250.
"He's got it all together and I'm very proud of him," said Douglas' father, Billy, who will work in his corner. The father and son had a falling out before Douglas upset Tyson.
The Duran-Camacho fight is billed as being for the fringe IBC middleweight title, but a victory, not the title, is what is important to both men.
A loss would finish Duran as a big-money attraction, and it also would be a serious setback to the 34-year-old Camacho, a former WBC super featherweight and lightweight champion, who has fought mostly as a junior middleweight (154 pounds) since 1992 and who boxed at the welterweight limit of 147 pounds in his last fight, on Jan. 16.