Sugar Ray Leonard's Toughest Fight

Eventually, to fill up his days, Leonard took on Bjorn Rebney as an agent to set up endorsements and appearances. Rebney, a former college fullback whose casual pose never quite masks an unsettling intensity, had worked with sports agent Leigh Steinberg, marketing athletes such as Steve Young and Oscar de la Hoya. One day in 1997, traveling back from a speaking engagement, Leonard looked up from the boxing magazines he was reading and complained to Rebney, "You don't see champions fighting champions anymore. There are no superstars, no network television. And the only things people know about boxing are the bad things." Before long, Leonard recalls, "Bjorn's telling me that if there is anyone who could really have an impact on the sport of boxing, it could be me." It wouldn't be like fighting, Leonard knew -- "Of course I don't get the same high from promoting" -- but it would be a fight. And this wouldn't be another athlete selling his name and likeness to white businessmen, either. "My whole career has been about defiance," he says, referring to his frequent changes in weight class and his equally frequent comeback attempts. "This is just another mission to prove wrong those who don't believe it can be done."

No sport -- maybe no business -- is more purely entrepreneurial than boxing. Anyone can call himself a promoter and stage a fight. Unlike other professional sports, whose owners collude out of mutual interest in their sport's image and general welfare, there are no real alliances or partnerships in boxing. It has no leagues or schedules. In principle, every match, every event is a separate deal. Attract boxers willing to fight (by guaranteeing a big purse, say, or a career-advancing match, or both), line up a venue willing to host the event (because you've created matches that will draw paying customers and business-advancing publicity -- plus TV fees and exposure), and get TV execs to pay you for the right to show your card, and you have yourself a little extravaganza. If enough people watch, you make money. If not, you don't make money -- and you lose the money you fronted in the first place.

It took four years for Leonard and Rebney to get Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing (SRLB) off the ground in 2001 -- why it took that long is not something they like to talk about -- but when it finally happened, the timing looked promising. By then, boxing chieftains King and Arum were both in their 70s, and a battle among long-struggling second-tier promoters was under way. From the beginning, Leonard and Rebney have thought they could play with the big boys. With SRLB, the two declared they would invent a better brand of boxing promotion. They would stage more competitive and entertaining fights (instead of the absurd and dull mismatches often used by promoters to "protect" their fighters' records). With better fights and a rejuvenated fan base, they would be able to court network television. And through network television, they would create the sort of stars that stirred the public's imagination in the days of Muhammad Ali, producing pay-per-view windfalls. SRLB, they insisted, would accomplish all this where other promoters had failed, because it would be different. Starting with the squeaky-clean reputation of Sugar Ray Leonard, the goal would be nothing less than to make boxing and Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing indistinguishable.

What would they do differently? Almost everything. They would treat the fighters better, offering them better purses. They would even open up their own books -- to fighters and to other promoters. "We've got nothing to hide," says Leonard. At first, Leonard and Rebney figured, the burgeoning SRLB brand would attract endorsements and corporate sponsorships just because of Leonard himself. In time, it would be the SRLB fighters and marquee events that would draw attention. Rather than resuscitate the sport's image, SRLB would give it a wholly new one. And in the process, SRLB would become the dominant boxing franchise. Because of Leonard, it would have credibility with boxers, sponsors, TV execs, and fans -- something few promoters other than King and Arum have enjoyed. Where most fledgling promoters struggle to land major venues for their young fighters, the prefight publicity Leonard could generate would prove attractive to casinos looking to sell tickets and woo high rollers. "I'll go into a city a week in advance and saturate the market," says Leonard. "We'll do mock weigh-ins, go to grocery stores, talk to every local reporter. I'll do whatever it takes."

That is precisely what he was doing in Oklahoma City in early January. The Thunderbird Wild Wild West Casino on Friday night isn't exactly what King meant by "the jungle" -- but in some ways, it's close. The building rocks with noise. The sellout crowd of 1,300, packed onto vinyl chairs worn thin after a thousand budget bingo nights, is drunk, vocal, and on edge. After five preliminary fights that end too soon or without excitement, here is what everyone has been waiting for, the heavyweight match, this one pitting 1996 Olympian Lawrence Clay-Bey, a 38-year-old fighter whose career Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing is looking to revive, against Charles Shufford, a career journeyman. Leonard himself, sitting ringside with his TV smile gone and his eyes severe, knows a good fight will win over the crowd -- including those watching on ESPN2. A good fight could go miles toward branding SRLB as the real deal.

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