Sugar Ray Rises to Heartfelt Win : Leonard Comes Off Floor to Stop Lalonde in 9th

LAS VEGAS —  For the umpteenth time in his remarkable career, 32-year-old Sugar Ray Leonard reached down deep and summoned what he needed to fuel his nuclear-powered heart.

And he emerged triumphant again in a desperate, exciting battle with a brave Canadian light-heavyweight, Donny Lalonde.

Before 13,246 in a 15,200-seat tennis court stadium at Caesars Palace, Leonard survived a fourth-round knockdown and battled back to knock out Lalonde in a dramatic ninth-round finish Monday night on a chilly, windy night.

Lalonde courageously took a fearful beating in the last rounds, succumbing when Leonard caught him flush on the jaw with brutal right hands and left hooks.

Donny Lalonde’s last stand came with 30 seconds left in the ninth round, just outside his own corner. As his cornermen rushed into the ring to revive their fallen fighter, Lalonde lay flat on his back, staring up at the ring lights.

Across the ring, right fist raised, Leonard, with a bleeding cut on the bridge of his nose, allowed himself a grin.

He had won Lalonde’s World Boxing Council light-heavyweight championship, as well as the title in the newly created WBC super-middleweight division. That’s five championships for a career. It was also Leonard’s 35th victory and his 25th knockout. He has lost once. Lalonde is 33-3 with 26 knockouts.

In the first two main events, Gilberto Roman defended his WBC super-flyweight title against Sugar Baby Rojas on a unanimous decision. Then Roger Mayweather outclassed Vinny Pazienza in a brawl of 140-pounders and retained, on a unanimous decision, the WBC’s super-lightweight championship.

No one will know how big Leonard’s payday is until people who bought the pay-per-view telecast pay their cable bill in early December. But the floor, according to his lawyer and the fight’s promoter, Mike Trainer, is about $15 million. Lalonde will make a minimum $5 million, according to Trainer.

This was a much-criticized promotion. Boxing journalists had ripped Lalonde as an opponent, pegging him as an under-credentialed journeyman, who somehow had won the WBC title. Undeserving of such a big payday, in other words.

So when it was over, in the interview room, Leonard, who hugged Lalonde before he took the microphone, began ripping reporters.

“I’m proud of myself, I beat a good fighter tonight,” he said.

“Donny Lalonde was criticized by a bunch of cynical reporters. Donny didn’t have to prove anything to me. I knew he was a great fighter.”

Leonard said he was dedicating his victory to people in South Africa fighting against apartheid.

Lalonde was virtually speechless afterward. “I lost to a great fighter, what can I say,” he said.

“He took some great shots. I’m sorry for all the kids I let down,” he said, referring to his campaign against child abuse.

“I thought I had him. I waited for my right hand, I got it in on him once, but it just wasn’t enough. He’s great at fighting when he’s hurt. I was surprised at his durability, he’s a very determined man.”

He was asked to evaluate Leonard’s punch.

“Well, obviously, I have to rate it pretty high,” he said, to some good-natured laughter. He also admitted he was dueling one of boxing’s great champions with only one weapon.

“I’m not a great technician, I never was and I never will be. I look for the big right-hand shot, and when I get it, I let it go. I got him once with it, but it wasn’t enough.”

He was referring to the fourth round, when he shotgunned the right hand in and dumped Leonard on the seat of his pants. Fifteen minutes later, he hurt Leonard again with a left to the jaw.

Leonard weathered that storm and was never in serious difficulty again.

This was a matchup of two men of great courage. But one is a great athlete, the other is not.

As the taller Lalonde began to wear down in the middle rounds, he legs became shaky, and when he missed, he often missed wild. His mouth was open, and he gasped for air. Seconds after Leonard was down, and referee Richard Steele had administered the eight-count, Lalonde charged Leonard like a wild man.

The Canadian seemed to be running out of gas in the fifth, and at roughly that point in the fight Leonard’s accurate left jab was snapping Lalonde’s head back.

Then came the left hooks to the jaw, and the thumping right hands to Lalonde’s ribs.

Lalonde had taken a beating in the fifth, the round after the knockdown, and when the bell ended the fifth, Leonard remained a center ring, defiantly glaring at Lalonde, who trudged back to his corner.

In the sixth, Lalonde was tipping his right hand by loading up and Leonard easily slipped Lalonde’s desperate rights.

The seventh was a great round, with Lalonde coming out in a seemingly do-or-die assault, throwing punches from every direction. Leonard matched the intensity and hurt him badly with a slamming left hook to the head and a right to the body.

In the eighth, Lalonde could only hold on, helpless against the increasing tempo of a now fully confident Leonard. Lalonde’s last flurry was late in the eighth, when he caught Leonard with a right that momentarily stunned him.

Lalonde flailed away courageously, yet awkwardly. Leonard seemed to slip everything, and appeared to be letting Lalonde punch himself out.

In the ninth, Leonard backed Lalonde up to the ropes, landing a half-dozen punches to the head, finally knocking him on his back.

There was some confusion at that point. Lalonde seemed to think he hadn’t beaten Steele’s count, and Leonard appeared to be walking toward Lalonde, to congratulate him for a noble effort.

But Steele waved them back into battle, and in short order Leonard had him on the ropes again. Two powerful punches, both to the chin, put Lalonde down for the count.

In the end, no one should have been surprised that courage and heart was the difference.

The boxing school of thought on Leonard’s heart goes like this: “If you removed Ray Leonard’s heart from his body, cut it up into microscopic-size pieces, you’d have enough to supply the entire First Marine Division.”

Nineteen months ago, in his memorable upset of Marvin Hagler in the same stadium, Leonard seemed to be on the brink of defeat a half-dozen times. Yet each time, he somehow cleared away the fog . . . and won.

Late Monday night, Leonard had to be happy he had stopped Lalonde when he was shown the scorecard. One judge, Stuart Kirschenbaum had Lalonde ahead by a point after eight rounds, 76-75.

Chuck Giampa had Leonard ahead by 77-74, and Franz Mardi had Leonard by 77-75.

The Times had Leonard by 78-72.

Mayweather-Pazienza was something out of Wrestlemania, which only suggests where boxing may be headed. The pay-per-view cable syndicator for the card was TitanSports of Stamford, Conn., parent company of the World Wrestling Federation.

Mayweather completely outclassed the brawling, crude Pazienza in a mismatch in which Mayweather socked referee Mills Lane on the back of the neck, and Pazienza’s chief trainer, 70-year-old Lou Duva, start swinging at Mayweather after the final bell.

Duva went down after an exchange of punches with Mayweather, before other Pazienza cornermen reached him and dragged him away. Duva, to the delight of the crowd, was still swinging and cursing at Mayweather.

Duva didn’t do much better than did his fighter against Mayweather.

The judges’ margins were 117-110 (twice) and 118-108. The Times card had Mayweather by 117-109.

From the opening bell, Pazienza tried to roughhouse with the unflappable Mayweather. In the third, Pazienza complained to Lane about a phantom Mayweather blow to the back of his neck. To demonstrate, Pazienza whacked Lane on the back of his neck with a vigorous demo punch.

At the end of the 10th, Mayweather’s trainer, Jesse Reid, put his hands on Pazienza’s chest and pushed Pazienza backward. Pazienza had followed Mayweather to his corner, taunting him.

Pazienza talked to, laughed at and taunted Mayweather all night. But in the 11th, when Mayweather dumped “The Pazmanian Devil” on the seat of his pants with a right uppercut, it was Mayweather’s turn to laugh.

Mayweather had a big lead on points after 10 rounds, and then administered a fearsome beating to the bloody Pazienza over the last two rounds.