Immortal combat

George Kimball reported on all of these battles and more as a newspaper reporter. He has distilled his experiences into an intoxicating, captivating tale of great boxers in a fatally flawed environment. His chronicle is subtitled "the last great era" and Kimball is not wistful but brutally realistic when he states that it was a time that will not be repeated. "Never before, never again," he says of the time of the four kings.

"They all came to greatness at the same time. Duran, of course, rose in a different era but he stayed on to create history with the others," he says. All the boxers were marked by talent, of course, but they also had a commitment to be the best. "They all wanted to fight each other," says Kimball. "Nowadays there are so many governing bodies and so many titles and people can avoid each other."

The four kings collided with the force and wilful belligerence of the true boxing champion. They were four different personalities who appealed to different sectors of the fan base. It was difficult, though, not to be in awe of each of them.

Kimball says: "I was working with the Boston Herald when Hagler came to the fore. He was living in Brockton so he was a big local story, I was very fortunate. In following him, I saw all the nine fights between the big four and many of their other fights too."

Kimball offers a one-word analysis of each of the fighters. Duran was savage, Leonard was sophisticated, Hagler was intense and Hearns was laid-back. There is, however, a huge back story to each combatant and Kimball tells it with astonishing clarity and insight. Leonard was the golden boy long before Oscar De la Hoya. He was the Olympic champion who started in professional boxing for the money and stayed in the hardest game because his ego demanded it. He suffered a detached retina in his eye but fought on as a multi-millionaire.

Hearns was the Hit Man from Detroit. He was a 6ft1ins steak of concussive punching who, incredibly, fought initially at welterweight. Hearns squeezed his frame down to 10 stone 7lbs but later went on to win titles at junior middleweight, middleweight and light heavyweight. Hagler was always a middleweight. The other three kings moved up the weights but Marvelous Marvin was the one constant in a shifting sea of fortune.

Duran, the savage Panamanian, was both simple and profound. His brief utterances offered hints to his personality. Asked as a kid if he wanted to earn $25, he replied: "Who do I have to kill?" He was brutal. He hit Ken Buchanan so low the Scottish boxer says he remembers the Panamanian every time he goes to the toilet. Pedro Mendoza was knocked out and when his wife entered the ring to reproach Duran she was promptly rendered unconscious with the same right that had felled her husband. But there were depths to this boxer who was part-bully, part-hero.

This, then, was the cast but as Kimball points out the drama was even greater than the splendid sum of its parts. "When we reported on them," he says, "we were very aware that they were big fights. But only history has shown just how big."

Two of the fights - Leonard-Hearns in 1981 and Hagler-Hearns in 1985 - are routinely, and correctly, judged as two of the greatest bouts of all time. The Leonard v Hagler fight in 1987 produced one of the greatest controversies in the fight game. Leonard won but many writers and fans believe that Hagler had prevailed.

"I beat him. I beat him, and he knows it," Hagler said after the points decision. "They stole it." Kimball, who was close to Hagler, believes the great man may just have lost the fight. "Leonard did what he wanted to do and denied Hagler what he wanted to do for the better part of the evening," he says.

Hagler never fought again. Leonard found it hard to stop, only hanging up the gloves after a bout with Hector Camacho in 1995. Hearns, almost incredibly, fought until 2006. His career as a professional started in 1977 and included 48 knockouts in 61 fights.

Duran lumbered on until 2001. His clashes with opponents were matched by his disputes with his country. Duran, infamously, said "no mas" to Leonard in the Louisiana Superdome on November 25, 1980. He was briefly put in jail when he returned to his outraged country.

Various theories were proposed for Duran's apparent capitulation. It was said he was injured or had stomach cramps or even was cowed by Leonard's breath-taking superiority. Kimball, who watched the Panamanian inflict serious damage on a list of opponents, believes Duran was simply frustrated with Leonard's evasive style. Eight years later, after sensational battles with Herans and Hagler, Duran took on Leonard again, losing on a decision.

Kimball is reluctant to say who was the best of the four but offers a solution to fans debating this decision. "Leonard and Hagler were better than Duran and Hearns. So it comes down to who you think won Leonard-Hagler," he says. There is no question, however, that this was a golden age for boxing, at least in the ring. The circus surrounding the boxers was the usual mix of clowns, con men and criminals. Kimball is brilliant in his observations of the boxing business. Leonard had the business acumen to up the ante for fights into the tens of millions but the others believed they were ill-served by the business and politics of boxing.

Hagler believed that Las Vegas judges could not be trusted. He may have been right. Hearns believed he was ill-served by the match-makers. He was right. Duran believed he was always the outsider. And nobody was going to tell him he was wrong.

The four boxers conspired, however, to produce an era that surely will not be surpassed. They did this at a time when boxing was "raffishly charming" in one of Kimball's most inspired euphemisms. "Boxing is the red light district of sport," he adds. But he knows it was the focus of the sporting world in the violent, spectacular reign of the four kings. Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns and Duran and the Last Great Era of Boxing, by George Kimball, is published by Mainstream at £10.99