following November. While Leonard attempted to
battle head-to-head with Duran in the first fight, he
boxed far more skillfully in the second, frustrating his
opponent so much that Duran finally waved the fight
off in the eighth round, famously declaring “no mas.”
The win over Benitez and the two fights with
Duran brought Leonard to the top years of his box-
ing career. After moving up in weight in June of 1981
to defeat Ayub Kalule for the WBC light middle-
weight title, Leonard faced undefeated knockout
artist Thomas Hearns in September for the com-
bined WBC and World Boxing Association (WBA)
welterweight titles. Leonard defeated Hearns by a
technical knockout (TKO) in the fourteenth round;
the bout was later chosen byThe Ringas the maga-
zine’s 1981 Fight of the Year. After one defense of
the combined title in February of 1982, and while
preparing for his next fight in May, Leonard suf-
fered a detached retina in his left eye. Although sur-
gery to repair his eye was successful, Leonard an-
nounced the first of his several retirements from the
ring in November of 1982.
Following a brief return to the ring in 1984 and
further eye surgery, Leonard again retired, but he was
enticed out of retirement a second time to fight mid-
dleweight champion Marvin Hagler in April of 1987.
At the time of the fight, Hagler, who had a record of
sixty-two wins with fifty-two knockouts, was favored
three to one. The bout ended in a controversial deci-
sion win for Leonard. The following year, Leonard
defeated Donny Lalonde to win two WBC titles: the
light heavyweight and the super middleweight. In
1989, he fought consecutive bouts with his earlier ri-
vals Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran, fighting to a
controversial draw with Hearns and easily defeating
Duran on points. After losing two comeback efforts in
the 1990’s, he retired for good in 1997.
Impact During the 1980’s, Leonard fought and
beat the best fighters in his weight divisions: Benitez,
Duran, Hearns, and Hagler. Although several of
his fights involved controversial decisions, he was
clearly one of the dominant figures in the sport
throughout the decade.
Further Reading
McIlvanney, Hugh. “Sugar Ray Leonard v. Thomas
Hearns, Las Vegas, 16 September 1981.” InThe
Hardest Game: McIlvanney on Boxing.Updated ed.
New York: Contemporary Books, 2001.
Myler, Patrick. “Sugar Ray Leonard.” InA Centur y of
Boxing Greats: Inside the Ring with the Hundred Best
Boxers.London: Robson Books, 1999.
Toperoff, Sam.Sugar Ray Leonard and Other Noble
Warriors.New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987.
Scott WrightSee also African Americans; Boxing; Sports.Letterman, David
Identification Late-night television talk-show host
and comedian
Born April 12, 1947; Indianapolis, Indiana
Originally regarded as a kind of young person’s Johnny
Carson, Letterman quickly developed his own style of com-
edy, establishing a format that would be widely imitated by
the late-night television hosts of the next generation.
When David Letterman debuted as the host of NBC’s
Late Night with David Lettermanon February 1, 1982,
he faced the dual challenge of maintaining the enter-
tainment standards ofThe Tonight Show with Johnny
Carson(which he immediately followed in NBC’s pro-
gramming schedule) and of developing an audience
for late-night, talk-show comedy among a generation
assumed to be too young to embrace Johnny Carson
as its own. As if sensing the absurdity of being ex-
pected to realize two such contradictory goals simul-
taneously, Letterman immediately established as the
tone of his show the relaxed, self-referentially playful
irony that he had honed during the 1970’s as a com-
edy writer and a stand-up comedian. Coincidentally,
the growing influence of postmodernist studies was
beginning to popularize just such self-reflexive hu-
mor among his target audience: college students.
Like Carson, Letterman involved his sidekick, the
show’s bandleader Paul Schaffer, in both his banter
and his routines. Unlike Carson or any other talk-
show host up to that time, Letterman frequently uti-
lized the members of his crew, making unlikely stars
of his writers, cue-card holders, and cameramen. He
also developed the comic potential of the mundane,
getting creative mileage (and ever-increasing rat-
ings) from activities such as reading viewer mail; in-
terviewing unsuspecting Manhattan store owners;
and dropping bowling balls, watermelons, and other
otherwise uninteresting objects off the tops of tall
buildings.
Large portions of Letterman’s show were scripted584 Letterman, David The Eighties in America