Sugar Ray Leonard

By a narrow split decision, respondents to "It's Your Call" said Sugar Ray Leonard would stick by his pledge never to fight again.Fifty-eight percent of those calling said Leonard's convincing loss to Terry Norris in Madison Square Garden Saturday night would be his last fight. The other 42 percent of the 209 respondents said Leonard would un-retire, as he has numerous times before."It's Your Call" represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically as would be done in a scientific public opinion poll.

PHILADELPHIA -- After nearly two years in storage, the boxing career of Thomas Hearns is back on the launching pad. But will the 40-year-old "Hit Man" blast off again? Or is the legend's final countdown doomed never to get off the ground?"Tommy's like John Glenn," Hearns's longtime manager-trainer, Emanuel Steward, said in comparing the six-time, five-weight-class former world champion with America's favorite septugenarian astronaut. "They're both exceptions to the rules."Hearns (57-4, 45 KOs)

The estranged wife of boxing great Sugar Ray Leonard, who accused her husband of assaulting her on several occasions during their marriage, blames her husband's agent and attorney for many of the problems that plagued the couple's 10-year marriage."

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Twelve years ago, Sugar Ray Leonard, caught between one of his numerous comebacks, was impressed with the ring skills of a flashy lightweight named Hector Camacho and offered to manage him. But Camacho's flammable mouth quickly squelched the deal.Saturday night, before a crowd of 10,324 at the Convention Center, Leonard tried a different tack. Leonard, a grandfather two months shy of 41, challenged a bulked-up Camacho for his International Boxing Council middleweight title.

Just when you thought Sugar Ray Leonard was gone, someone is trying to bring him back.Los Angeles-area promoter Dan Goossen wants a rematch between Leonard and World Boxing Council junior-middleweight champion Terry Norris."

Sugar Ray Leonard, 40, will reportedly end a five-year retirement and return to the ring in February to face Hector "Macho" Camacho, 34, in a pay-per-view telecast.According to ESPN, Leonard will enter the ring for just the second time in eight years when he squares off against Camacho. Leonard, who grew up in Prince George's County and currently is an official for the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, last fought in 1991 when he was soundly beaten by current junior middleweight champion Terry Norris.

In life, there are opportunities, and then there are opportunities.It's the difference between designing a suit for, say, an NBA world champion or a four-time world boxing champion -- and making clothes for a real world champion.Or, to put it another way, how big could Isiah Thomas and Sugar Ray Leonard be compared to Nelson Mandela?"Sports is great," says Everett Hall, fashion designer to the stars -- athletes, entertainers, politicians, you name it. "It's been tremendously helpful to us. The guys are beautiful and tremendously supportive.

PHILADELPHIA -- After nearly two years in storage, the boxing career of Thomas Hearns is back on the launching pad. But will the 40-year-old "Hit Man" blast off again? Or is the legend's final countdown doomed never to get off the ground?"Tommy's like John Glenn," Hearns's longtime manager-trainer, Emanuel Steward, said in comparing the six-time, five-weight-class former world champion with America's favorite septugenarian astronaut. "They're both exceptions to the rules."Hearns (57-4, 45 KOs)

NEW YORK -- When Sugar Ray Leonard arrived in Las Vegas for his fight against Marvin Hagler in 1987, his entrance to Caesars Palace was heralded by a phalanx of bogus Roman trumpeters, a couple of actors dressed as Caesar and Cleopatra and a gauntlet of imitation Roman slave girls who sprinkled His Sugarship with rose petals as he mounted the marble steps.When Leonard arrived in New York yesterday for his first day of local training for his Feb. 9 fight against World Boxing Council junior middleweight champion Terry Norris at Madison Square Garden, his reception was less opulent but no less enthusiastic.

Maryland attorney Mike Trainer, who manages Sugar Ray Leonard's boxing career, discounted a news report out of Detroit yesterday that Leonard and archrival Thomas Hearns were close to signing for a third fight.Leonard won the first match in 1981, stopping Hearns in the 14th round to win the undisputed welterweight crown. They battled to a 12-round draw in June 1989, with Leonard conceding that Hearns, who floored him twice, deserved the decision."The rematch is imminent," Hearns had told the Detroit News.

Sugar Ray Leonard, 40, will reportedly end a five-year retirement and return to the ring in February to face Hector "Macho" Camacho, 34, in a pay-per-view telecast.According to ESPN, Leonard will enter the ring for just the second time in eight years when he squares off against Camacho. Leonard, who grew up in Prince George's County and currently is an official for the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, last fought in 1991 when he was soundly beaten by current junior middleweight champion Terry Norris.

Come on, you were expecting at least a piece of a competitive fight, too?Sheesh, some folks are never satisfied.This was vintage Don King, the "He's Back" fiasco perpetrated early Sunday morning in front of 16,736 eyewitnesses in Las Vegas and millions more elsewhere. The 89 seconds it took for Mike Tyson and manager-trainer Vinny Vecchione to dispose of cartoon character Peter McNeeley was mostly insignificant.The show, of course, was the torrent of words, the rolls of film, the miles upon miles of videotape, the time and space expended by hundreds of media outlets since Tyson fled prison in March.

PALMER PARK -- Six years ago, Dan Sherry was in a gym here helping Sugar Ray Leonard prepare for his light-heavyweight title bout with Don Lalonde. During a sparring session, Leonard caught Sherry, then a 19-year-old amateur, with a body shot that doubled over the Canadian middleweight.But Sherry returned the next day to absorb another pounding, convincing Leonard that the teen-ager had a future as a professional.Now 26 and a veteran of 25 pro bouts, including encounters with super-middleweight champion Nigel Benn and former 160-pound king Chris Eubank, Sherry (21-4)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- So much for the idea of platooning Chito Martinez and Luis Mercedes in right field. Mark Leonard is the latest entry into the right-field derby, and the way this bizarre race is evolving, Sugar Ray Leonard might be next.Mark Leonard turns 29 in August, and his major-league experience consists of 274 at-bats. But with two weeks left in spring training, the Orioles believe he might actually beat out Martinez, another left-handed hitter who is the leading candidate for the job."

In life, there are opportunities, and then there are opportunities.It's the difference between designing a suit for, say, an NBA world champion or a four-time world boxing champion -- and making clothes for a real world champion.Or, to put it another way, how big could Isiah Thomas and Sugar Ray Leonard be compared to Nelson Mandela?"Sports is great," says Everett Hall, fashion designer to the stars -- athletes, entertainers, politicians, you name it. "It's been tremendously helpful to us. The guys are beautiful and tremendously supportive.

Just when you thought Sugar Ray Leonard was gone, someone is trying to bring him back.Los Angeles-area promoter Dan Goossen wants a rematch between Leonard and World Boxing Council junior-middleweight champion Terry Norris."

PALMER PARK -- Six years ago, Dan Sherry was in a gym here helping Sugar Ray Leonard prepare for his light-heavyweight title bout with Don Lalonde. During a sparring session, Leonard caught Sherry, then a 19-year-old amateur, with a body shot that doubled over the Canadian middleweight.But Sherry returned the next day to absorb another pounding, convincing Leonard that the teen-ager had a future as a professional.Now 26 and a veteran of 25 pro bouts, including encounters with super-middleweight champion Nigel Benn and former 160-pound king Chris Eubank, Sherry (21-4)

In the 1950s, the idea that hated Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher would one day manage the archrival New York Giants was unthinkable. But it happened, and when Durocher won two pennants at the Polo Grounds, he was forgiven all his past sins.Now there is a similar scenario in boxing. One of the hottest rivalries in the 1980s matched Sugar Ray Leonard against Thomas Hearns. As a subplot, there was the fierce competition in the corners between the Hearns' manager-trainer, Emanuel Steward, and Leonard's trainer, Angelo Dundee.

WASHINGTON -- Faced with the end of his brilliant boxing career and a failing marriage, Sugar Ray Leonard turned to cocaine and heavy alcohol use from 1982 until early 1986 in an effort to solve his problems, he said yesterday."

By a narrow split decision, respondents to "It's Your Call" said Sugar Ray Leonard would stick by his pledge never to fight again.Fifty-eight percent of those calling said Leonard's convincing loss to Terry Norris in Madison Square Garden Saturday night would be his last fight. The other 42 percent of the 209 respondents said Leonard would un-retire, as he has numerous times before."It's Your Call" represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically as would be done in a scientific public opinion poll.