NEW YORK -- Almost every boxing champion can look back on a fight early in his career when he had to enter that "little dark room" former heavyweight king Muhammad Ali often talked about, where a fighter is cornered and on the brink of defeat, but somehow finds a reservoir of will to pull off an improbable victory.
Former heavyweight champion Michael Spinks once said, "I'm telling you, what I do for a living can be terrifying."
There certainly were frightening times for six-time world champion Sugar Ray Leonard and youthful Terry Norris, whom Leonard challenges for the World Boxing Council super-welterweight title at Madison Square Garden tomorrow night.
For Leonard, 34, it came in May 1979 against Marcos Geraldo. It was the yet-uncrowned Leonard's first test against a legitimate middleweight. In the third round, Geraldo got all his weight behind a booming left hook that caught Leonard right between the eyes.
"Suddenly, I saw three Geraldos," Leonard said later. "I couldn't distinguish who was who when he caught me again with a right. I was lucky to last the round."
Leonard complained of triple vision between rounds, and
then-trainer Angelo Dundee advised him, "Hit the one in the middle." Leonard followed orders and survived with a 10-round decision.
For Norris, 23, the first true test of his will came early in his professional boxing career.
As his manager, Joe Sayatovich, remembered: "It was only Terry's sixth fight, a four-round preliminary against a tough guy named Gilbert Baptist.
"You see some fighters who just refuse to be knocked out. Baptist was one of them. They went to war for 12 minutes, but Terry wouldn't quit until he beat this guy. I always knew he had the God-given talent, but that fight made me realize he also had the heart of a champion."
Fighting came naturally for Norris, a native of Lubbock, Texas. He was a good enough prep baseball player to attract scholarship offers from several colleges. But his father, Orlin Norris Sr., a former club fighter, and his brother Orlin, a heavyweight contender, served as role models.
"Terry is an athlete more than a fighter," said Sayatovich. "He can bench-press 250 pounds and can skip rope for 20 minutes without breaking a sweat. Leonard is a bulked-up welterweight, but Terry is a true 154-pounder."
Norris was 9 years old when he watched in awe as a flashy kid from Maryland named Ray Leonard danced and jabbed his way to a gold medal in the 1976 Olympic Games.
