No Más: The Night Roberto Durán Walked Away From Sugar Ray Leonard

On the night of 25 November 1980, inside the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Roberto Durán turned away from Sugar Ray Leonard with seconds left in the eighth round and refused to go on. Five months earlier the Panamanian had beaten Leonard in a brawl in Montreal. The rematch ended in one of the most argued-over surrenders in boxing, and the two words attached to it are still disputed by the man who supposedly spoke them.

Montreal, June 1980: Leonard Fights Durán's Fight

The first meeting took place on 20 June 1980 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, with Leonard's WBC and The Ring welterweight titles at stake. Leonard came in unbeaten at 27-0 with 18 knockouts. Durán, a former lightweight king, had a record of 71-1 with 56 knockouts and had moved up in weight to chase the bigger, younger star.

The money showed who the attraction was meant to be. Leonard was paid $9 million and Durán $1.5 million, and the event was billed as the richest in boxing history up to that point. Accounts of the betting differ slightly: one reference work lists Leonard as a 9-to-5 favourite, another describes Durán as a 2-to-1 underdog. Either way, the American was expected to win.

He did not. Instead of using the speed and footwork that had carried his career, Leonard chose to stand and trade with a man who had built his reputation on close-range violence. Over 15 rounds the crowd, which was warmer toward Durán than toward the supposed local favourite, watched the challenger press and punish. All three judges went for Durán, by 145-144, 148-147 and 146-144. Even the announcement went wrong: the decision was first read out as a majority verdict, with one card wrongly given as a draw, before being corrected to unanimous.

Five Months Between Two Very Different Training Camps

Neither man fought again before the rematch, which was set for 25 November, just five months and five days after Montreal. What each did with that time became central to every later explanation of the result.

Durán, now a national hero in Panama, celebrated. Later accounts describe a long stretch of partying and heavy eating after the victory, and a struggle to get back to the welterweight limit. Leonard went back to work on the approach he had abandoned in Canada: speed, distance and the jab.

This time the purses were reversed in Durán's favour. He was guaranteed $8 million, Leonard $7 million. Durán was 29 years old; Leonard was 24.

New Orleans: The Superdome Rematch

From the opening bell in New Orleans, Leonard boxed on the move. Through the first six rounds he kept the fight at the end of his left jab, stepping in to score and stepping out before Durán could set his feet. The pressure that had worked in Montreal kept finding empty air.

The fight was close on paper even as Leonard took control of its rhythm. When it ended, the official cards had Leonard in front by 68-66, 68-66 and 67-66, a narrow lead rather than a rout.

Round Seven: The Bolo Punch and the Open Chin

In the seventh, Leonard went beyond out-boxing his rival and began to mock him. He dropped his hands, shrugged, swayed, wobbled his legs and pushed his chin forward, daring Durán to hit it. He worked in an Ali-style shuffle. The most remembered moment came late in the round, when Leonard wound up his right arm in a wide circle as if to throw a bolo punch, and while Durán watched the right hand, snapped a left jab flush into his face.

For a fighter whose entire identity rested on intimidation, it was a public humiliation in front of a national television audience. Leonard later recalled how, after all his movement, that jab snapped Durán's head back.

Round Eight: Durán Walks Away

The eighth followed the same pattern, with Leonard's jab landing cleanly. Near the end of the round Durán straightened, gave a dismissive wave of his glove and half-turned away. Leonard drove in a right to the body and a punch to the side. Referee Octavio Meyran paused, seemed ready to let the action continue, and Durán turned his back again before walking off toward his corner.

The fight was waved off at 2:44 of round eight, with 16 seconds left in the round. Leonard was the winner by technical knockout and once again WBC welterweight champion. A fighter who had built his name on never taking a backward step had simply stopped.

"No Más" or Something Else? The Competing Accounts

What Durán actually said in those seconds has never been settled. The phrase that went into the record books, "no más", Spanish for "no more", reached the public largely through the broadcast of Howard Cosell. Meyran was also reported as saying Durán repeated it, and the referee added that Durán told him in broken English that he would not box any more.

Durán has rejected that version for decades. In one account he says he never spoke the words to anyone and blames Cosell for creating them; he says he was muttering "no sigo, no sigo, no sigo", meaning roughly "I'm not continuing". Another version attributed to his camp has him saying he did not want to fight "the clown". His son Robin has said in interviews that his father only waved his hands and that it was the referee who announced the stoppage. Leonard himself has said he never heard Durán say "no más"; boxing historian Bert Sugar reported Leonard telling him the same.

The sources therefore agree on the gesture and the result, but not on the words. What can be stated firmly is that Durán stopped fighting of his own accord with the bout still going, not because the referee or his corner intervened.

Cramps, Pride and a Withheld Purse

Durán's immediate explanation was physical. He said he had cramps in his stomach and his right arm, problems he later said began around the fifth round. He linked them to cutting weight too quickly and then eating heavily after the weigh-in. His manager, Carlos Eleta, offered a less forgiving reading, suggesting that embarrassment rather than illness had made him stop. Many observers drew the same conclusion from the seventh-round taunting.

After the fight Durán announced he was finished. "I will never fight again. I am retiring from boxing now," he said, as quoted by Boxing News. The Louisiana State Boxing Commission voted unanimously to withhold his $8 million purse and ordered a medical examination.

The reaction in Panama was severe. The national idol of a few months earlier saw his television commercials taken off the air within hours.

The Long Road Back

The retirement did not last. On 9 August 1981, Durán returned with a unanimous ten-round decision over Nino Gonzalez in Cleveland, Ohio. The real rehabilitation came on 16 June 1983, his 32nd birthday, when he stopped Davey Moore in the eighth round at Madison Square Garden to win the WBA light middleweight title. The New York crowd sang "Happy Birthday" to him as he wept in the ring.

Leonard, for his part, had shown that he could beat Durán in two ways: he could not out-muscle him, but he could out-think and unsettle him. The rematch in New Orleans is remembered less for its scorecards than for the moment a fighter famed for never backing down chose to stop, and for the argument about his words that has outlived the fight itself.

Sources

• Roberto Durán vs. Sugar Ray Leonard II, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
• Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Durán, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
• Roberto Durán, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
• On this day: A frustrated Roberto Duran surrenders to Sugar Ray Leonard, Boxing News, 25 November 2021
• The Four Kings: No Mas - Roberto Duran vs Sugar Ray Leonard 2, Planet Sport (Joe Hewlett), 26 August 2021
• The Rematch, Sky Sports (Adam Norman), 23 May 2014
• Sugar Ray Leonard reflects on No Mas, The Washington Informer (Stacy M. Brown), 24 November 2015