For Panama boxing hero in US film

The night US forces invaded Panama, Roberto Duran ran home from a bar to get his gun. He was too drunk to defend his homeland. He passed out instead.

It is one of many colorful episodes in the life of the Panamanian boxing champion -- now immortalized in a new film, "Hands of Stone" with US "Raging Bull" actor Robert De Niro.

But like many of the darker points in Duran's life story, the grittiest details of the tale did not make into the movie.

To hear those bits, you have to talk to the man himself.

The film leaves out the part about him waking the next morning with his feet tied to the bed -- the only way his family could find to stop him doing something dangerous.

Legend had it that Duran -- regarded as one of the all-time greats of the ring -- wanted to fist-fight the invaders who deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989.

With typical bravado, the stocky five-foot seven (170-centimeter) fighter, now 65, set the record straight in an interview with AFP.

"I didn't want to punch them," he said. "I wanted to shoot them!"

A friend dragged him from the bar, he recalled, into the street, where he saw the sky lit up by the blasts of the invasion.

"Damn, what beautiful fireworks," he said to a friend.

- Knockouts -

For a six-time world boxing champion, his plucky stand was characteristic.

Duran recently reportedly said he would like to fight US presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Falling unconscious, however, was something he rarely did -- or at least not in the ring.

He won 103 of his 119 fights, knocking out 70 of his opponents and only getting knocked out four times himself.

He spoke ahead of the Mexican premier of Venezuelan filmmaker Jonathan Jakubowicz's biopic of Duran next month.

"Hands of Stone" was Duran's nickname back in his prime.

Venezuelan Hollywood actor Edgar Ramirez plays Duran and De Niro has the role of his trainer, Ray Arcel.

- Dark side -

The movie hinges on Duran's fall from grace as a Panamanian hero. Months after triumphing over the US star Sugar Ray Leonard, an overweight Duran was humiliated in a rematch.

Duran is the first to admit he likes to party.

"I don't do drugs of any kind. But I'll have a few drinks with anyone. I got pretty wasted last night," he chuckles, and rolls out another anecdote.

They say he once spent a $100,000 advance in a single week of partying. Not true, Duran laughs. "I spent it in three days."

Reviewing the film, the New York Times complained that it glosses over what Duran himself calls his "dark side" -- an impulsive, hard-drinking street fighter.

"I told them about my dark side," Duran said. "I don't know why the producer didn't put it in."

Source: AFP