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By Thomas Gerbasi - If you were sent to a desert island but given the choice of taking career DVD sets of just 12 fighters, which dozen would you choose? In Part One of this little trip down memory lane , my first six were Alexis Arguello, Tony Ayala Jr., Diego Corrales, Frank “The Animal” Fletcher, Arturo Gatti, and Larry Holmes. Here’s the rest… - Sugar Ray Leonard - I don’t have any proof of this, and I may just be making assumptions, but I’m guessing that I was the only white kid in my Irish-Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn who had a Sugar Ray Leonard scrapbook. And I didn’t care. Sugar Ray Leonard was Muhammad Ali to those of us pre-teens just getting into the sport, and even though the mainstream media gravitated to him because of his style and charisma, as I got older, it was clear that for all the TV commercials and the squeaky clean image, at heart he was always a fighter, and his resume proved it. Of course, having a diehard Roberto Duran fan as a father made things a little tense around the house back around the first Duran-Leonard bout in Montreal, but a few months later, New Orleans and “No Mas” gave me bragging rights once again.
Years later, thanks to my buddy Brian Adams, I finally got to interview Ray briefly when he was promoting the first season of ‘The Contender,’ and while he got a funny look on his face and took a step back when I told him about the scrapbook (yeah, I had to), he couldn’t have been more gracious. They say to never meet your heroes because you’ll get disappointed, but that certainly wasn’t the case here. [Click Here To Read More]
Years later, thanks to my buddy Brian Adams, I finally got to interview Ray briefly when he was promoting the first season of ‘The Contender,’ and while he got a funny look on his face and took a step back when I told him about the scrapbook (yeah, I had to), he couldn’t have been more gracious. They say to never meet your heroes because you’ll get disappointed, but that certainly wasn’t the case here. [Click Here To Read More]
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