THE new autobiography of Roberto Duran, โI am Duranโ, is a must-read for boxing fans. The story of Duranโs fabled career might be well known but here for the first time he recalls those legendary fights in his own, with highlights like his approach to his first fight with Sugar Ray Leonard and his account of the infamous โno masโ return.
The book is also unexpectedly revealing of Duranโs personal life, his childhood on the streets of Panama and throughout its pages pulses with the kind of thirst for fighting and thirst for good living that perhaps only Duran could muster.
Itโs hard to imagine anyone else being flown to Cuba to watch Teofilo Stevenson box and sat next to Fidel Castro, only to then turn to Castro to tell The Comandante that Muhammad Ali โkills Stevensonโ. Indeed perhaps only this book could start with Robert Duran, after recounting how he briefly died, declaring: โWhen I retired I would gladly have beaten the crap out of all the deadbeats in the sport. The same goes with the boxers today: Pacquiao, Mayweather โ theyโre pitiful. I could have beaten them all.
โPeople rate me as the greatest lightweight of all time. And why not? I think I am.โ
โI am Duranโ is out now, published by Macmillan.