Bitter-sweet story of a legend

Sugar Ray Leonard probably never pulled a punch during his distinguished boxing career. He certainly does not pull any in his autobiography.

Sugar Ray Leonard: The Big Fight – My Life In and Out of the Ring is a remarkable story.

The book tells of a poor youngster from Maryland who went on to become one of the legends in boxing history, and of the personal turmoil of Ray Leonard.

Leonard won a gold medal at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada. As a professional he won world titles in five weight divisions.

Along the way he beat fighting legends such as Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler.

Questions that emerged before his epic fight with Marvin Hagler at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on April 16, 1987, are included in the book.

“Would it be Sugar Ray Leonard, the star of numerous conquests in the past, an American hero since capturing the gold medal in Montreal more than a decade earlier, the anointed heir to the throne vacated by Muhammad Ali?

“Sugar Ray was resilient, fearless, unwilling to accept failure. The smile of the innocence of a child, which made him a hit on TV, would be gone, replaced in the ring by a man filled with rage he did not understand, determined to cause great harm to another.

“Or would it be Ray Leonard, the part-time boxer at the age of thirty, whose best was well behind him, his days and nights wasted on fights that never made the headlines, fights he lost over and over, to alcohol and cocaine and depression?”

With the odds stacked against him after an absence of nearly three years from the ring, and fighting above his natural weight in the middleweight division, he upset Hagler to win on a highly disputed split decision.

Before the bout he had been diagnosed with a detached retina that brought about a temporary end to his career.

However, after surgery performed by a top eye specialists, he was given the all clear to fight again, despite negative press reports.

Leonard used cocaine for the first time soon after he had received the bad news about his eye, even though he knew how drugs had messed up the lives of his brother Roger and sister Sharon.

The people with whom he used cocaine lived in mansions with swimming pools. They were among the most prominent high-profile stars in music and movies; not ordinary workers.

In the end Leonard showed enough character to admit that he was an alcoholic. With the help of Alcoholics Anonymous he overcame his drinking. He also stopped taking drugs and his womanising.

Thanks to the love of his wife Bern he received a second chance to be a husband and a father; something he never was to his first wife Juanita and their two sons.

The book is a remarkable tale of a man who had it all and nearly lost it all. It is published in hardback by the Penguin Group and has 303 pages.

Michael Arkush, who wrote the story with Leonard, has written ten other books, including the bestselling The Last Season with Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson.

One of his other books, The Fight of the Century, was about the first fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.