Of all the sad, even shocking endings to a great boxing career, the way the once untouchable Sugar Ray Leonard went out against Hector Camacho (RIP) has to rank pretty highly in the doom and gloom stakes.
It was no Muhammad Ali taking a prolonged beating at the hands of Larry Holmes (this fight, not Ali’s last, but often thought of as such; Ali actually having another sad affair, against Trevor Berbick a little over a year later), but the sight of “feather-fist” Camacho hammering what was left of Sugar Ray – the man who had stood up to anything and everything great punchers like Tommy Hearns, Marvin Hagler and Roberto Duran were able to put on him – into the canvas inside five rounds was disturbing viewing all the same.
In fact, Leonard – now aged 60 and recently ranked by Ring Magazine as the greatest living fighter – is still unable to watch a tape of his final fight, some twenty years later.
Speaking with The Undefeated, the former welterweight/light-middleweight/middleweight/super-middleweight/light-heavyweight king says he cannot bare to look at himself losing to Camacho.
“I have not seen the film. I have not watched the tape of the loss. I put it on, and the minute they announced my name, I turn it off. I swear to God,” Sugar Ray revealed. “It’s tough because I’ve always worked so hard and I’ve always overcome many obstacles. This was one, it was like ‘Father Time.’ It was time for me to hang up the gloves and I pushed the envelope. And I paid for it, but put it this way, do I regret it? No, not necessarily, because I am who I am because of my life, because of what I’ve endured.”
Leonard, the most charismatic fighter of his era, a great fighter who always found a way to win, was a smart and intelligent boxer; one everyone felt would go out on top, with a win. Instead, like most of the greats, his idol Ali included, Leonard pushed his luck too far and found himself paying the price.
Leonard actually lost his last two fights (also like Ali), having been outpointed and knocked down twice by Terry Norris in 1991. Still, despite that loss, it was a genuine shocker when Camacho became the first man to stop Leonard that March night in Atlantic City in 1997. Leonard cannot bring himself to watch the fight, and it’s no nice experience for his millions of fans either.