BOXING:One of boxing's Four Kings tells JOHNNY WATTERSONhow drink and drugs took over after his career ended and how he still keeps in touch with his peers

SUGAR RAY Leonard tells the story as if the humiliation of it is a rod on his back. The black T-shirt and smooth unmarked face, the lean stomach and the $100 million smile, it doesn’t matter, Leonard has bled himself before. He is, he says, no different to anyone else. “Yeah, two arms, two legs.”

Only Muhammad Ali casts a longer shadow in the world of boxing. A peerless five world title belts at different weight divisions and a choreographed series of fights against Thomas Hearns, Marvin Hagler and Roberto Durán speak of another era where champions fought each other.

Four Kings they were called but the stylish artist, the one audience measurement systems, the Neilsen ratings, anointed as “box office” shortly after returning from the Montreal Olympic Games with a gold medal was Leonard. At his height he commanded $12 million a fight. It wasn’t enough.

“I was in Monte Carlo. I flew in from the States and I saw all my friends. We all hung out. Big time,” he recalls. “Next morning someone knocked on my door. I went ughhh. I thought something was wrong. He said sir, sir he’s waiting for you. I ran to his room and I apologised. I apologised probably 20 times. I stood up Nelson Mandela. It was sickening. You know what he said? He said, ‘it’s okay son, it’s okay’.”

Despite his veniality Leonard lives in another world. Still, he says if he was in town longer he would attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Dublin. The $100 million smile is just that, the amount he won in fight purses in the 1980s. After a childhood of poverty, he became the richest non-heavyweight on the planet.

He may have become a boxing cliché but happened upon Ali shortly after winning the Olympics in 1976. Invited into the dressingroom, the greatest gave him one piece of advice.

“He said when you turn pro don’t let anyone own you. At the time I didn’t totally understand what he was saying. When I was by myself after he left I thought about it. I remember professional boxers who became world champions, made a lot of money and became homeless. Nothing. That’s what he meant. I got it.”

And so Leonard thanked Don King for his interest but decided to cut his own deals, make his own business decisions, took percentages of television money, gate receipts and he didn’t let anyone own him.

It was all so perfect until the cocaine, the sex, the abuse he suffered as a child and the alcohol addiction cost him a chunk of his millions, his marriage and family.

“The first few months were tough because I’m Sugar Ray Leonard,” he says. “But when I walk into that room I’m the same. I’m an alcoholic. What happens is your life becomes almost unmanageable.”

He knows few people understand what it takes to do what he did, how it feels to hang on to the 15th round of a brutal fight, step through the ropes with a cracked rib or straddle the divisions between welter and light heavy with breathless panache and authority. Leonard was blessed with movement, balance and heart few have equalled.

“Beating Tommy Hearns was a defining moment,” he says. “Durán, Hagler, Hearns and me we talk. Periodically. Hagler is more . . . reserved. Durán, we’re talking about some television show but yeah I have a relationships with those guys. What we did to each other back then has no relevance.

“Hagler lives in Milan. Hagler’s old school. He just wanted to get away. The fight happened. The fight was over. He didn’t like the call or the decision. He just packed up and left.

“Durán. You can’t help but mention No Más. Of all people . . . to hear Roberto Durán say I quit . . . His legacy should not be affected by one bizarre moment. I do feel for him. I go right back to that fight in New Orleans. The world just stopped. What the hell happened? What the hell just happened? Roberto Durán just quit. He said No Mas. He’ll live with that for the rest of his life.”

Like Leonard himself will do. Outside the ring, perhaps the biggest fight of all.

Sugar Ray Leonard “The Big Fight”, Ebury Press €12.99