CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY WE SELL SERVICE! ★ WE ARE PORTLAND’S ONLY STEREO REPALR SPECIALIST! ★ WE SERVICE AND REPAIR ALL BRANDS AND TYPES OF STEREO EQUIPMENT! ★ WE ARE NOT SALESMEN. WE ONLY SERVICE WHAT YOU OWN. NER SOUND STEREO REPAIR JAY MOSKOVITZ Certified Electronic Technician 2314 S.E. Division Portland, OR 97202 Phone 238-1955 Greek Wines IF | YOU COULD SAY ANYTHING WITH CERTAINTY ’ IN THE ; FLAMING WELTER I OF PERSON ALITIES THAT MAKE U (^Mediterranean an unusual place featuring WORLD OF Greek Olives Souvlaki Vegetarian Souvlaki Dolmades Spanakopita Octopus Open for Lunch at 11:00 a.m. Wed. night is poetry night—host Walt Curtis 1650 W. Burnside 222-1507 Illustration by Stephen Leflar BOXING, YOU WOULD HAVE SWORN THAT ROBERTO DURAN HAS GUTS, HE'S A STAYER, HE HAS HEART, AND HE'S A FIGHTER. NOVEMBER 24 THE FIGHT BY KATHERINE DUNN hat’s how the marquee of the Paramount Theater read on Tuesday night. Everybody who knows what a fight is knew that THE FIGHT was the re-match for the WBC Welterweight Championship between Robert “ Stone Hands” Duran of Panama, and challenger Sugar Ray Leonard, the nice American boy. Make no mistake, this is a clearly biased account. This reporter is an impassioned Duran fan. At twenty and twenty-five dollars a seat for the closed circuit T.V. screening, the Paramount was crammed to the balconies so high that they’re called “ The Gods.” There were a fair number of Duran people climbing into their seats before the fight. There were fewer Duran fans leaving afterwards. But the Leonard supporters were in a strange state, too. Something happened Tuesday night, an event somehow shocking to everyone who witnessed it no matter where their loyalties lay. The crowd coming out was too numb to argue, too confused to do much more than head home and wait for the newspapers to explain what it was they had seen. Public interest had erupted after the spectacular upset in June in Montreal. In that fight Leonard tried to deal with Duran on his own terms, toe-to-toe, flat footed, abandoning much of his evasive footwork. It was a conscious attempt to take Duran in a way that would eliminate any question of Leonard’s right to the title. Leonard failed in Montreal. If he had fought the same way in the re-match he would have failed again. After Montreal the controversy was of another kind. Howard Cosell, (the Boulder Dam of media schlock, the fence-hopping unplumbed reservoir of sentimental mis-information) did his best to drum up doubts about the referee’s work in the match, claiming that Duran was consistently allowed to use head and shoulder butts, low blows, and other foul tactics which evidently only Cosell could see. Leonard himself, following the fight, said he had no complaints about the . actions of the referee. Yet in interviews just before the Nov. 25 rematch, Leonard and his manager Angelo Dundee made constant references to Duran’s dirty fight techniques. Reminders from Duran’s camp that in 74 professional bouts, Duran has never been docked for a foul were ignored. With the black beard jokes — Leonard and Dundee wearing false whiskers to interviews to protest that Duran’s beard scratched his opponents face and cushioned his chin from blows — and the usual fire and blood auto-suggestion common to boxers in preparation for a major contest, Leonard arrived in the New Orleans Superdome confident and at the top of his form. He danced. He ran. He danced. And Duran stalked after him as Duran always has. Let it be said in Leonard’s behalf that there were some actual clashes in the ring that night. Whenever Duran caught up with him Leonard delivered blows and took some and escaped a few. But for ninety percent of the strangely condensed time in this bout, Leonard stayed as far away from Duran as possible. When Leonard’s pre-fight plans were announced, to fly, to stay on the balls of his feet, Duran’s response was, “ That’s fine. But he’ll have to stop to hit me.” The firs t two rounds were Leonard’s on points. He came in on bird strikes, pecking blows that did no damage but counted up points. His jab is fast and his feet are faster. He didn’t stick around to deal with any aftermath much less offer a serious combination of his own. Duran was patient, not bulling in after Leonard. Pre-fight worries on 43
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