The Golden Boy’s big bout

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/11/2018 (2840 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nov. 7 is the 30th anniversary of the most-hyped match in Manitoba boxing history  — when Golden Boy Donny Lalonde fought  Sugar Ray Leonard at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

At the time, Lalonde held the World Boxing Council light heavyweight title, which he had won in November 1987 with a second-round knockout of Eddie Davis.

Leonard, then 32, came out of his third self-imposed retirement to fight the younger Lalonde, then 28. The estimated payday of $12 million may have had something to do with it. Leonard’s last fight had been a middleweight championship victory over Marvelous Marv Hagler in April 1987. At that point in his illustrious career, his resume showed a gold medal from the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and world title victories over the best of the era, Wilfred Benitez, Roberto Duran and Tommy Hearns.

Lalonde’s road to Las Vegas was much different. As an amateur, he had an undistinguished record of 11 wins and four losses and failed to make the Canadian team for the 1980 Olympics. He turned pro at 19 and during the early 1980s was fighting on undercards at the International Inn, a far cry from Caesars Palace.

Lalonde took matches where he could find them and in October 1982, he and Dan Vandal, now the  Member of Parliament for St. Boniface-St. Vital, boxed on a card in Kitchener, Ont., and then on a card in Winnipeg just five days later. When the Manitoba Boxing Commission discovered this rules violation, the two boxers were suspended.

Who would have thought that Lalonde would be earning $5 million for one fight just a few years later?
A crowd of 13,246 filled the outdoor arena in Vegas for the Lalonde/Leonard battle. Celebrities present included Bob Dylan, Sylvester Stallone and Whoopi Goldberg. City councillors Don Gerrie and Al Golden were among the 700 supporters from Winnipeg. At home, more than 12,000 watched on a big screen at the old Winnipeg Arena, and thousands more at closed-circuit screenings in pubs and lounges around town.

The fighters split the first two rounds before Lalonde outpunched Sugar Ray to win the third. At 1:27 of the fourth, a left-right to the head floored Leonard. He took a standing eight-count and Lalonde was all over him for the rest of the round.

Lalonde kept the pressure on early in the fifth but Leonard, who had shown in his first match with

Duran that he could fight with grit when in trouble, battled back and took the round.

Leonard also won the sixth and seventh but Lalonde took the eighth when four straight punches had Leonard reeling. In the ninth, Leonard had his jab working early but Lalonde backed him onto the ropes with six punches. They then went toe-to-toe, which was a mistake for the Winnipeg boxer. A right hurt him and a flurry of punches put the Golden Boy on the canvas. After a standing eight-count, a right to the head put him down again and his manager jumped into the ring and ended it.

In his autobiography, The Big Fight, Leonard wrote that he trained hard for Lalonde, who he described as looking more like a surfer than a fighter, and wasn’t about to take him lightly. Two weeks before the fight, Leonard had a premonition that he would be knocked down. After it actually happened in the ring, Leonard recalled that he was calm and worked hard to slow down his heart rate and survive the round. He felt he then took over the fight in the fifth.

Memories of Sport appears every second week in the Canstar Community News weeklies. Kent Morgan can be contacted at 204-489-6641 or email: sportsmemories@canstarnews.com