Sugar Ray Leonard Video Interview On ‘Big Fight: My Life In And Out Of The Ring,’ Being Molested

Well, you know, in fact I was a shy introverted kid that, you know, would do anything to avoid confrontation. But there was violence in my home, my parents, on the streets, so it was a kind of a dichotomy. I didn’t want it, but then I saw it and I lived it, so it was kind of a life experience that I dealt with as a kid.

Well that’s quite simple because my older brother Roger, who was a boxer, he would be beat me up just because I was there, one of those things, and one day he encouraged me to come to the gym with him. I went to the gym and I saw these bags and people boxing and I tried it out. Naturally I was not very good at the beginning, but because I was so disciplined, I was so motivated. I had such a passion for the mano-a-mano that within six months to a year, I surpassed him, broke his nose, beat most guys up in the gym. I advanced very quickly.

I look at my career, and I got my strength from my dad, but I got my firepower, you know, from my mom. She’s feisty, she’s 83 and she’s still feisty. I just have that fighting spirit from my mom. She never gave up, she didn’t think twice about losing, she was just one of those women who was strong-minded, and I think I got that part from her.

You know, it was one of those things that ate at me for over thirty years. It was killing me, it was really killing me, depending upon what day or night I had of drinking, and one day I saw Todd Bridges on 'Oprah' and what he said and the way he stated how he felt after revealing that. It kind of gave me a little bit more incentive, more courage to talk about it.

There was nothing greater, there was nothing bigger, there was nothing more exciting, first of all to be on the Olympic team, and then to have brought back a gold medal. I mean ultimate is not even justifiable with words, but it was kind of bittersweet, because at the point after winning the gold medal, I was going to quit boxing because I didn’t want to pursue a professional career. But that aside, winning the gold medal was one of the biggest if not the biggest accomplishments of my career, and life.

There is no way to land the perfect knockout. If it were that easy I would still be doing it. But I think you just have to be focused, you just have to be determined, you have to win every round. That’s the most important advice I could give a young boxer, an amateur boxer, Olympic boxer. Win every round.

The great thing about amateur boxing competition, especially the Olympics, is that you don’t have time for what we call a feeling-out process, that’s when you have a few rounds to waste to figure things out. In Olympic boxing, you have to go in there and do what you do best, whether it’s punching or boxing, whatever you do best, do that a 100 percent, and you should win.

Well, you know, Juanita was an incredible mother, and girlfriend, and wife; she tried the best she could with what she had. And little Ray was there, you know, waiting to have his father around and everything. But a career in boxing for me, you got to be selfish and I was selfish; it was all about my career, because it dictates, it takes you away, because your whole focus is on winning. And something has to suffer in that process and what normally suffers is the family, for sure.

Well, I lost my first professional fight in 1980 against Roberto Durán in Montreal, where I won the gold medal, but he taught me the importance of psychological warfare, because he got inside my head. He was really a very clever guy, a very smart guy. But in the rematch I turned the tables around on him, because I understood more so about psychological warfare, I played against his mind, I did things in the ring that you normally don’t do, whether it’s the Ali shuffle, the bolo punch, I did those things, made the audience or fans laugh at Roberto Durán. He got highly frustrated and he quit, which was fun, big fun.

I love it. I had a chance to talk to [UFC President] Dana White. What he has been able to produce is astounding and it’s impressive. But they both can coexist and I like them both.