Читать книгу Sporting Blood. Tales from the Dark Side of Boxing онлайн

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Except for a few heated insults exchanged before their previous fights, Durán and de Jesús were fierce but not enraged competitors. In the days before their unification match, however, Durán made his feelings about de Jesús clear. “I don't like him for a lot of reasons,” Durán said, “mostly because he is the only man ever to beat me. And he is the only man to ever knock me down. I don't like him for a lot of reasons, but I have to respect him for them.” Their rivalry reached critical mass at the weigh-in when both camps took part in a scuffle that made the usually unflappable Don King jittery about the possibility of having to postpone the fight.

On January 21, 1978, Durán and de Jesús met at Caesars Palace in a bout broadcast nationally by CBS. Already hollowed out by a drug habit that predated his championship reign, de Jesús looked slack during the prefight instructions. He entered the ring a 5-7 underdog that afternoon, but the truth was that de Jesús, at twenty-six, was only the latest nostalgia act to hit the Vegas strip.