WHEN in the 1970s high rollers arrived at the now extinct but then iconic Caesars Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas, greeting them just inside its elaborate doors would be one Joe Louis. Louis’s appearance and role there as the hotel’s host marked an almighty fall from grace. That this former heavyweight world champion and sporting and cultural icon could be reduced to this in his twilight years was both insult and injury combined.

But, then, needs must and by now his ring earnings were long gone, lost to a penchant for living the high life and a hungry IRS which hunted him for unpaid taxes until his dying day in 1981. But, still, from former heavyweight world champion to shuffling novelty act at a Las Vegas hotel and casino? What cruel fate.

Fast forward to now, and Joe Louis has his modern-day equivalent in the personage of Roberto Duran. Duran is, as Louis was and remains, a genuine legend of the sport. His “Hands of Stone” ring name was more than justified during a career which saw him face the most formidable lightweights, welterweights, light middleweights, and middleweights not only of his, but of any era.