By Norm Frauenheim-
Boxing loves history. It remembers, yet it can’t repeat. Not yet, anyway. I’m not sure it has to. These days, just a good fight is enough. Keith Thurman-Danny Garcia Saturday in CBS prime time looks as if it fits the latter part of the bill.
With the year only a couple months old, it’s the best in 2017 thus far. It has a chance to be better than anything seen last year. History can wait, perhaps on a rematch in the evolution of a classic rivalry. Yet, the parallels are there, as irresistible as they are inevitable. In part, that’s why Sugar Ray Leonard will be there as a CBS analyst and a ringside symbol of what the sport would like to be all over again.
Thurman, the WBA’s welterweight champion, and Garcia, the WBC champ, are fighting for the same titles that were at stake when Leonard and Thomas Hearns battled each nearly 36 years ago in a September, 1981 bout that ranks among the all-time classics.
Changes since Leonard prevailed — retaining the WBA’s belt and taking the WBC’s version from Hearns in a 14th-round stoppage– at an outdoor ring behind Las Vegas Caesars Place and before a reported network television audience of 300 million – have forever altered boxing. There are countless titles and more television networks than acronyms. There are fewer fighters these days. More great athletes risk head trauma on the football field than they do in the ring anymore.
“Fortunately, I was in an era where there were just a lot of guys out there who were so talented,’’ Leonard said during a conference call before Saturday’s bout (PT 6-8 pm/ET 9-11 pm) at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
For Leonard, there were so-so many, although it’s ironic that the rivalry with Hearns was a business partnership that fell short of its potential. They fought a second time, nearly eight years later in 1989.
But it was forgettable, a draw that left nobody interested in a third step of a trilogy. Still, there was Roberto Duran and Iran Barkley and Marvin Hagler and all of the other legends of that time. There were so many chances at creating legacies, and Leonard, Hearns, Duran and Hagler did exactly that.
There aren’t as many opportunities these days and perhaps the willingness to do so just isn’t there anymore. The game conducts itself according to Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s business model: The biggest reward for the smallest risk. It worked for Mayweather, who fulfilled his Money nickname millions of times over. But it has created problems for fighters who might have had a better chance at a legacy for themselves in Leonard’s era.
“I always thought that we had to continue to raise the bar as a fighter, as a champion, and continue to fight better and better competition,’’ he said “When I was fighting, I swear, I wanted to be the underdog -psychologically, spiritually and mentally. If I wasn’t challenged, if I wasn’t considered somewhat of an underdog, I couldn’t perform the way I normally would. It’s what would get me going.’’
For Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs) and Garcia (33-0, 19 KOs) those kind of challenges loom in a bout that is only the third between unbeaten welterweight champions and the first since Felix Trinidad’s controversial victory over Oscar De La Hoya in 1999.
Thurman-Garcia is also intriguing for elements not reflected in their records. Thurman is a compelling personality. He is boxing’s enlightened warrior, a fighter who studies Eastern religions, plays music and talks philosophy.
He’s likable, the flip side to Danny Garcia’s offensive trainer and father, Angel, whose racial slurs at a news conference a few weeks ago left questions about whether the New York State Athletic Commission would license his to work the corner. It did, which adds a controversial edge. Will Angel’s presence put additional pressure on his son?
Danny Garcia is likable in his own way, but his father has turned him into the bad guy. Every great fight needs some good-and-evil, but Danny Garcia has been forced into an ill-fitting role by an offensive dad.
Meanwhile, the ever-poised Thurman has kept his cool throughout the race-baiting rhetoric from Angel Garcia. At opening bell, however, will he be motivated to make the son pay for what the dad said? There’s a danger in that, too especially against the counter-punching Danny Garcia, whose left is as lethal as any if it is allowed to land.
There’s potential on several levels for the kind of fight that Leonard experienced and endured.
“It is an out-of-body experience,’’ said Leonard, who on Wednesday picked Thurman to win. “It’s déjà vu. Like holy, I’m 60. It’s a kind of thing that is so special. It’s so rare of a unification. it seems like. It speaks volumes to me as far as the significance of it. And these guys, Keith and Danny, they know it.
“They realize it.”
Leonard has been there. Maybe, Thurman Garcia and will get there.
