Duran, Whitaker top class of 2007

Both fighters were champions in four different weight
classes.

CANASTOTA, N.Y. (AP) — Roberto Duran turned his “hands of stone” into palms raised skyward in thanks for a remarkable boxing career.

“I want to thank America. You opened your heart so I could enter. Thank you everybody who lives in the United States, who saw me grow into becoming a world champion,” Duran said Sunday through a translator as he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. “My country is being inducted as well. The country where I was born, where I live, and where I will die. I’m happy, proud.”

Duran, a world champion from Panama in four weight divisions over a career that spanned five decades, joined Olympic gold medalist Pernell Whitaker, another four-division champion. Duran and Whitaker were chosen from the modern era, along with undefeated Mexican straw-weight (105 pounds) champion Ricardo “Finito” Lopez, who held his world crown for more than a decade with a string of 21 successful defenses.

Others inducted

Also among the class of 2007 were Argentine trainer Amilcar Brusa, longtime WBC president Jose Sulaiman and artist Leroy Neiman. Honored posthumously were heavyweight George Godfrey, lightweight Pedro Montanez, light heavyweight Kid Norfolk, manager/matchmaker Cuco Conde, newspaper cartoonist TAD Dorgan, and 19th century boxers Young Barney Aaron and Dick Curtis.

The three modern-era fighters were chosen in their first year of eligibility following a minimum five-year retirement. Members of the Boxing Writers Association and a panel of international boxing historians chose the inductees.

“This is unbelievable. It’s a wonderful feeling, an honor, a dream come true,” Whitaker said. “I knew it would come. I just didn’t think it would come this soon. It puts a period at the end of 29 great years.”

Now boxing promoter

Duran, now 55 and a boxing promoter, grew up poor in Panama with little education. He started boxing for money, turning professional in 1967 at age 16, and fought until he was 50, finally forced to stop by injuries from a 2001 car accident.

Over five decades, the man with the “manos de piedra” compiled a 103-16 record, with 70 knockouts, and won world titles as a lightweight (1972-1979), welterweight (1980), junior middleweight (1983), and middleweight (1989-1990).

Whitaker, now 42, was a southpaw with a stinging right jab who won more than 200 amateur fights and lost only 14 before capturing a gold medal at the 1984 Olympics and turning professional.