title: Super Nintendo Entertainment System

text: Super NES emulation began with VSMC in 1994, and Super Pasofami became the first working Super NES emulator in 1996. During that time, two competing emulation projects, Snes96 and Snes97, merged to form Snes9x. In 1997, ZSNES development began. In 2004, Bsnes development began with the goal of preservation through maximal accuracy and compatibility, and was renamed to Higan.


title: Super Nintendo Entertainment System

text: Nintendo of America maintained its stance against the distribution of Super NES ROM image files and the use of emulators as it does with the NES, insisting that these things represent flagrant copyright infringement. Emulation proponents assert that the discontinued hardware production constitutes abandonware status, the owners' right to make a personal backup, space shifting for private use, the development of homebrew games, the frailty of ROM cartridges and consoles, and the lack of certain foreign imports. Nintendo designed a hobbyist development system for the Super NES, but never released it.


title: Super Nintendo Entertainment System

text: Unofficial Super NES emulation is available on virtually all platforms, such as Android, iOS, game consoles, and PDAs. Individual games have been bundled with official dedicated emulators on some GameCube discs, and Nintendo's Virtual Console service for the Wii introduced diverse and officially licensed Super NES emulation.


title: Super Nintendo Entertainment System

text: The Super NES Classic Edition was released in September 2017 following the NES Classic Edition. This emulation-based mini-console, which is physically modeled after the North American and European versions of the Super NES, is bundled with two Super NES-style controllers and 21 games, including the previously unreleased "Star Fox 2".


title: Chynna Phillips

text: Chynna Gilliam Phillips (born February 12, 1968) is an American singer and actress, and a member of the vocal group Wilson Phillips. She is the daughter of the Mamas & the Papas band members John and Michelle Phillips


title: Chynna Phillips

text: Phillips began her career in acting. She appeared in films such as "Some Kind of Wonderful", "Caddyshack II", "Say Anything" and as the title character Roxanne Pulitzer in the 1989 television biographical film, "Roxanne: The Prize Pulitzer". In 1995, she appeared as Kim MacAfee in the television movie "Bye Bye Birdie". Phillips voiced the character of Kitty along with her husband William Baldwin as Johnny 13 in "Danny Phantom" episodes "13" (2004), "Lucky in Love" (2005) and "Girl's Night Out"(2007).


title: Chynna Phillips

text: Phillips was a contestant on the thirteenth season of "Dancing with the Stars". Her professional partner was two-time finalist Tony Dovolani.


title: Chynna Phillips

text: In the late 1980s, Phillips formed the trio Wilson Phillips with her childhood friends Carnie and Wendy Wilson. The group released their self-titled debut album in 1990. The album would go on to sell eight million copies. The group's second album, "Shadows and Light", released in 1992, was a commercial disappointment, despite being certified platinum.


title: Chynna Phillips

text: In 1995, Phillips released her debut solo album, "Naked and Sacred", but failed to recapture the success she found with Wilson Phillips. In 2004, Wilson Phillips reunited to record their third album, "California", which featured cover tunes from West Coast singers from the 1960s/70s.


title: Chynna Phillips

text: In the October 15, 2007, issue of "People" magazine, she was said to be writing songs for a Christian album. She appeared in brother-in-law Stephen Baldwin's documentary, "Livin It: Unusual Suspects". In 2009, Phillips teamed up with singer/songwriter Vaughan Penn to form the duo "Chynna and Vaughan". The two released their debut album, "One Reason", on September 22, 2009. Wilson Phillips released 'Christmas In Harmony' in 2010 and 'Dedicated' in 2012. They continue to play shows every year.


title: Chynna Phillips

text: Phillips met actor William Baldwin of the acting Baldwin family in 1991 and has been married to him since 1995. Together, they have three children, daughters Jameson (born in 2000) and Brooke (born in 2004) and son Vance (born in 2001).


title: Chynna Phillips

text: In September 2009 Chynna's half-sister, Mackenzie Phillips, alleged in her memoirs that she [Mackenzie] and her father had a "consensual" ten-year incestuous relationship. While both Geneviève Waïte (John's wife at the time, and mother of Bijou Phillips), and Michelle Phillips, John's second wife (mother of Chynna Phillips) told the media that they did not believe her claims, Chynna said she believed Mackenzie.


title: Chynna Phillips

text: On February 12, 2010, Phillips was treated for anxiety. In a statement made on February 27, her manager Lizzie Grubman said, "After successfully completing her in-patient treatment for anxiety, Chynna Phillips has happily returned home to celebrate her daughter's birthday with her family." Grubman said Phillips was "happy to be home with her family. She is in great spirits."


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: Love Island is a British dating game show. It is a revival of the earlier celebrity series of the same name, which aired for two series in 2005 and 2006, and was hosted by Caroline Flack until her suspension in 2019; Laura Whitmore presented the series from 2020 to 2022. The series is the originator of the international "Love Island" franchise, with twenty-two versions of it having been produced so far worldwide.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: The show has been highly successful and influential in British popular culture; it became ITV2's most watched show in the network's history in 2018, and as of 2020 was the most watched TV show among its target audience of 16- to 34-year-olds. However, it has attracted a considerable amount of controversy, with four people linked to the show having died by suicide. Contestants Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis died by suicide after appearing on the programme; Gradon's boyfriend died by suicide about 20 days after her death. The following year the show's original presenter, Caroline Flack, also died by suicide. There have been calls from some to cancel the programme.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: On 13 February 2015, it was confirmed that "Love Island" would be returning, and would be aired on ITV2. However this series would include members of the public rather than celebrities. On 18 April 2015, it was announced that Caroline Flack would be hosting the show. The series finally returned on 7 June 2015 with a live special showing the new Islanders enter the villa. During the series, a number of guests entered the villa including Calum Best, who was one of the Islanders in the original series back in 2005, and went on to win the series. Mark Wright also made a guest appearance in this series DJing for Lauren Richardson's birthday party. The series ended on 15 July 2015 and was won by Jess Hayes and Max Morley. Islanders Cally Jane Beech and Luis Morrison became the first couple from the show to have a baby together.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: The second series was confirmed on 14 February 2016, and began airing on 30 May 2016. This series featured the first Islander to be removed from the villa. Malia Arkian only spent a matter of hours in the villa before she was removed from the series by the producers after an altercation with Kady McDermott. It also included a number of Islanders who decided to voluntarily leave the villa, the first being Rykard Jenkins.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: Also during the series, Islander Zara Holland was stripped of her Miss Great Britain title due to her behaviour in the villa. The second series also included Sophie Gradon and Katie Salmon becoming the first same-sex couple on the show. The series was eventually won by Cara De La Hoyde and Nathan Massey on 11 July 2016. On 15 September 2018, the series runners-up Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen married, becoming the first couple from Love Island to marry.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: The third series was confirmed on 14 February 2017, and began airing on 5 June 2017. This series was the first series to include a second villa, which was brought into the series during a twist set to put the couples to the ultimate test. This series also featured dumped Islanders Mike Thalassitis and Sam Gowland returning to the villa after being voted back in by the public; a first for the show.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: The series ended on 24 July 2017 and was won by Amber Davies and Kem Cetinay. During the final "Aftersun" episode of the series, which was presented live from outside the villa, it was announced that there would be a one-off reunion special airing on 30 July 2017 which included all of the Islanders from the series.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: The fourth series began on 4 June 2018, and launched with a record 4,050,000 viewers making it the most watched multichannel TV programme since the 2012 Summer Olympics were broadcast on BBC Three, and the most watched ever on ITV2. The series included the reintroduction of "Casa Amor" following its success in the previous series. The series concluded on 30 July 2018 and was won by Dani Dyer and Jack Fincham, who received a record-breaking 79.66% of the final vote.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: It was also confirmed that another one-off reunion special would air a week after the final. As the fourth series began, the Islanders experienced tragedy with the suicides of Gradon and her boyfriend Aaron Armstrong, as well as the suicide of Thalassitis months after the series concluded. After the latter's death, the programme announced that they would offer counselling to all contestants in hopes of preventing further suicides.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: A fifth series was confirmed on 30 July 2018, which started broadcasting on 3 June 2019. The series increased upon the previous success of the fourth, gaining a record-breaking 4,700,000 viewers on TV sets and a further 1,400,000 viewers on other devices for the episode following Casa Amor, the most for any ITV2 broadcast. Furthermore, more than half of the viewers were in the 16 to 34 age bracket. The series concluded on 29 July 2019 and was won by Amber Gill and Greg O'Shea with a 48.82% share of the vote.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: On 24 July 2019, ITV announced that two series of "Love Island" would air in 2020 – one in the winter and another in the traditional summer slot. The winter series would be broadcast in January 2020 from a new villa in South Africa. On 17 December 2019, Flack announced that she would be standing down as host for the sixth series following allegations of assault towards her boyfriend, Lewis Burton. On 20 December, it was announced that fellow TV presenter Laura Whitmore would be standing in as the new host.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: On 15 February 2020, Flack was found dead in her London home, prompting ITV to pull two episodes from airing out of respect for the former host at the weekend. Series 6 continued from 17 February and Iain Stirling, the show's narrator, paid tribute to Flack saying he was devastated by the loss of his "true friend". Sponsorship adverts for fast-food company Just Eat were replaced by a message telling people to be kind, with a contact number for the Samaritans.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: On 4 May 2020, "Love Island" announced the cancellation of the summer 2020 show due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kevin Lygo, ITV's Director of Television said in a statement: "We have tried every which way to make Love Island this summer but logistically it's just not possible to produce it in a way that safeguards the wellbeing of everyone involved and that for us is the priority. In normal circumstances we would be preparing very soon to travel out to the location in Mallorca to get the villa ready but clearly that's now out of the question." It was later confirmed that the show would not be airing a winter version of the series in 2021 due to uncertainties regarding the pandemic and international travel. On 4 March 2021, ITV confirmed that "Love Island" would return in the summer after an 18-month hiatus. An eighth series was announced at the end of series seven in August 2021 and began airing the following summer on 6 June 2022. Also in June 2022, ITV announced that two series would air in 2023, with one airing in the New Year in South Africa and the second returning to Mallorca in its usual summer slot. On 22 August, Whitmore announced that she would not be returning to host the show's ninth series in January 2023. On 12 October 2022, ITV2 announced that Maya Jama would be taking over from Whitmore as Love Island host.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: "Love Island" involves a group of contestants, referred to as Islanders, living in isolation from the outside world in a villa in Mallorca, constantly under video surveillance. To survive in the villa the Islanders must be coupled up with another Islander, whether it be for love, friendship, or money, and the overall winning couple receives a combined £50,000. On the first day, the Islanders couple up for the first time based on first impressions, but over the duration of the series they are forced to "re-couple" where they can choose to remain in their current couple or swap partners.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: Any Islander who remains single after the re-coupling is eliminated and dumped from the island. Islanders can also be eliminated via public vote, as during the series the public votes through the Love Island app available on smartphones for their favourite couple or prospective couple. Pairs who receive the fewest votes risk being eliminated. Often a twist has occurred where it has been up to the Islanders to vote one of their own off the island. During the final week, the public vote towards which couple they want to win the series and therefore take home £50,000.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: During the first series, the Thursday episode was presented live by Caroline Flack where eliminations often took place and new Islanders entered the villa. However, from the second series onwards the live episodes were axed except for the final. Whilst in the villa, each Islander has their own phone in which they can only contact other Islanders via text – or receive texts informing them of the latest challenges, dumpings or recouplings. Islanders and couples are typically faced with many games and challenges to take part in designed to test their physical and mental ability, with the winners getting special prizes afterwards. Some Islanders are also sent on dates outside the villa, or can win dates by winning challenges.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: From the first series, a weekly re-cap episode entitled "Love Island: The Weekly Hot List" aired every Saturday and includes a round-up of everything that has happened in the villa over the past week. This also includes unseen footage. In May 2017 it was confirmed that a new spin-off show "Love Island: Aftersun" would air during the third series. It airs live on Sundays after the highlights episode and is hosted by main show host Laura Whitmore. It also includes celebrity guests, former Islanders and a studio audience. On 30 July 2017, "Love Island: The Reunion" was broadcast on ITV2, interviewing the islanders and remembering the most memorable moments from the third series.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: On 1 and 2 October 2017, Chris Hughes and Kem Cetinay starred in their own spin-off show, "Chris & Kem: Straight Outta Love Island", which followed the popular double act as they write a rap song to perform at a Ministry of Sound club night. The two-part series also starred Chris and Kem's girlfriends from "Love Island", Olivia Attwood and Amber Davies. It was broadcast on ITV2. In March 2018, a fly-on-the-wall documentary spin-off titled "Chris and Olivia: Crackin’ On" was aired and followed the life about contestants; Chris Hughes and Olivia Attwood after "Love Island" and their dramatic split. Unlike the other spin-offs and the main show, it was broadcast on ITVBe.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: Ahead of the fourth series in 2018, it was revealed that Kem Cetinay would be returning alongside Arielle Free to present "Love Island: The Morning After", a new daily podcast show delivering the freshest gossip to fans.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: The fifth series was the first not to include "The Weekly Hotlist"; instead it was replaced by "Love Island: Unseen Bits".


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: The main Mallorcan villa for the UK version of "Love Island" is Sa Vinyassa in Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, Casa Amor is the nearby Alchemy Villa, and the Vibe Club is the Shiva Beach Club in Llucmajor.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: The South African villa for the 2020 series was Midden Cottage in the Constantia suburb of Cape Town.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: In June 2022, ITV confirmed that there will be "2 helpings" of "Love Island" in 2023. It will return in January at a "stunning new villa in South Africa," before returning to Mallorca for an 8-week run in the summer.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: Some contestants have had revenge porn containing explicit images of them posted online and have received death threats.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: Host Caroline Flack and contestants Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis all died within a 20 month period by suicide. Gradon's boyfriend also killed himself about 20 days after her death. After the suicides of Gradon and Thalassitis, concerns were raised about the pressures of reality television. Before her death, Gradon had spoken of the attacks she had received from online trolls as a result of appearing on the programme. Ian Hamilton, a senior lecturer at the University of York on addiction and mental health, described the program as one that "thrives on manufacturing conflict" and that "unfortunately it's the contestants who bear the brunt of this".


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: After Flack's death in February 2020, there were calls from some to cancel the programme. Questions were raised about the pressures of the show, and many drew attention to how "The Jeremy Kyle Show" had recently been cancelled after the suicide of a participant. In response, producers of the show provided training on handling negativity, financial management, and social media.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: In 2018, "Love Island" received the BAFTA TV Award for the 'Best Reality and Constructed Factual' category.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: The show has received numerous complaints, with 4,100 people lodging official complaints about the 2018 series over issues such as the footage aired and how contestants have treated one another. The charity Women's Aid has criticised the treatment of female contestants by "controlling" and "abusive" male contestants. The Mental Health Foundation charity has also criticised the show for the negative impact it can have on viewers who feel insecure about their bodies. The show has also received criticism for its lack of body and ethnic diversity. The show's producers responded to this criticism by stating that the show was "aspirational" and that they "make no excuses" about having a cast of 'attractive' people on the show.


title: Love Island (2015 TV series)

text: "Love Island Pool Party" compilation albums have been released by Ministry of Sound since 2018. A "Love Island" app was released in 2017 by ITV Studios Global Entertainment, and "Love Island: The Game" was released in 2018 by Fusebox Games. It was reported by the "Evening Standard" in May 2020 that 12 million people globally had played the game.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Ray Charles Leonard (born May 17, 1956), best known as "Sugar" Ray Leonard, is an American former professional boxer, motivational speaker, and occasional actor. Often regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, he competed professionally between 1977 and 1997, winning world titles in five weight classes; the lineal championship in three weight classes; as well as the undisputed welterweight championship. Leonard was part of the "Four Kings", a group of boxers who all fought each other throughout the 1980s, consisting of Leonard, Roberto Durán, Thomas Hearns, and Marvin Hagler. Leonard also won a light welterweight gold medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The "Four Kings" created a wave of popularity in the lower weight classes that kept boxing relevant in the post-Muhammad Ali era, during which Leonard defeated future fellow International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees Hearns, Durán, Hagler, and Wilfred Benítez. Leonard was also the first boxer to earn more than $100 million in purses, and was named "Boxer of the Decade" in the 1980s. "The Ring" magazine named him Fighter of the Year in 1979 and 1981, while the Boxing Writers Association of America named him Fighter of the Year in 1976, 1979, and 1981. In 2002, Leonard was voted by "The Ring" as the ninth greatest fighter of the last 80 years. In 2016, he was voted by "The Ring" to be the greatest living fighter. BoxRec ranks him as the 14th greatest boxer of all time, pound for pound.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard, the fifth of seven children of Cicero and Getha Leonard, was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. He was named after Ray Charles, his mother's favorite singer. The family moved to Washington, D.C., when he was three, and they settled permanently in Palmer Park, Maryland when he was ten. His father worked as a supermarket night manager and his mother was a nurse. He attended Parkdale High School. Leonard was a shy child, and aside from the time he nearly drowned in a creek during a flood in Seat Pleasant, Maryland, his childhood was uneventful. He stayed home a lot, reading comic books and playing with his dog. His mother said: "He never did talk too much. We never could tell what he was thinking. But I never had any problems with him. I never had to go to school once because of him."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard started boxing at the Palmer Park Recreation Center in 1969. His older brother, Roger, started boxing first. Roger helped start the boxing program, urging the center's director, Ollie Dunlap, to form a team. Dave Jacobs, a former boxer, and Janks Morton volunteered as boxing coaches. Roger won some trophies and showed them off in front of Ray, goading him to start boxing.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In 1972, Leonard boxed in the featherweight quarterfinals of the National AAU Tournament, losing by decision to Jerome Artis. It was his first defeat. Later that year, he boxed in the Eastern Olympic Trials. The rules stated that a boxer had to be seventeen to box in international competition, so Leonard, only sixteen, lied about his age. He made it to the lightweight semifinals, losing a disputed decision to Greg Whaley, who took such a beating that he wasn't allowed to continue in the trials and never boxed again.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Sarge Johnson, assistant coach of the US Olympic Boxing Team, said to Dave Jacobs, "That kid you got is sweet as sugar". The nickname stuck. However, given his style and first name, it was probably only a matter of time before people started calling him Sugar Ray, after the man many consider to be the best boxer of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In 1973, Leonard won the National Golden Gloves Lightweight Championship, but lost to Randy Shields in the lightweight final of the National AAU Tournament. The following year, Leonard won the National Golden Gloves and National AAU Lightweight Championships. Leonard suffered his last two losses as an amateur in 1974. He lost a disputed decision to Anatoli Kamnev in Moscow, after which, Kamnev gave the winner's trophy to Leonard. In Poland, local fighter Jan Kwacz was given a disqualification victory over Leonard after being knocked down three times in the first round but the referee ruled that Leonard had punched after the bell.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard won the National Golden Gloves and National AAU Light Welterweight Championships in 1974. The following year, he again won the National AAU Light Welterweight Championship, as well as the Light Welterweight Championship at the Pan American Games.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In 1976, Leonard made the U.S. Olympic Team as the light welterweight representative. The team also included Leon and Michael Spinks, Howard Davis Jr., Leo Randolph, Charles Mooney, and John Tate. Many consider the 1976 U.S. team to be the greatest boxing team in the history of the Olympics. Leonard won his first four Olympic bouts by 5–0 decisions. In the semifinals, he faced Kazimierz Szczerba and won a 5–0 decision.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In the final, Leonard boxed the great Cuban knockout artist Andrés Aldama, who scored five straight knockouts to reach the final. Leonard landed several good left hooks in the first round. In the second, he dropped Aldama with a left to the chin. Late in the final round, he again hurt Aldama, which brought a standing eight count from the referee.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: With only a few seconds left in the fight, a Leonard combination forced another standing eight count. Leonard was awarded a 5–0 decision and the Olympic gold medal. Afterward, Leonard announced, "I'm finished...I've fought my last fight. My journey has ended, my dream is fulfilled. Now I want to go to school." He was given a scholarship to the University of Maryland, a gift from the citizens of Glenarden, Maryland. He planned to study business administration and communications. He finished his amateur career with a record of 165–5 and 75 KOs.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Juanita Wilkinson, Leonard's high school girlfriend, told him she was pregnant in the summer of 1973. They decided to have the baby but marriage would be put off until after the Olympics in 1976. Leonard would continue to pursue his Olympic dream while she and the baby, Ray Charles Leonard Jr., lived with her parents. When Leonard boxed in the Olympics, he had a picture of Wilkinson taped to his sock.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Shortly before the Olympics, Wilkinson had filed an application to receive $156 a month in child support payments from Prince George's County, Maryland. She named Leonard as the father and the county's state attorney's office filed a civil suit against Leonard to establish paternity and get support payments for the child. Leonard learned of the suit several days after returning home from the Olympics. The headline in the "Washington Star" read, "Sugar Ray Leonard Named in Welfare Dept. Paternity Suit".


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Wilkinson went to the Olympics to watch Leonard box, but she did not tell him about the suit and never asked him for any money. "I didn't feel like being bothered by all those complications by asking him for any money for support", she said. Leonard pledged he would support his son, even if he had to scrap plans to attend college.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard had hoped to get lucrative endorsements following his gold medal win, but the negative publicity from the paternity suit chased off any big commercial possibilities. To make matters worse, his father was hospitalized with meningitis and his mother had a heart attack. With neither parent able to work, with his child and the mother of his child to support, and without any endorsement opportunities, Leonard decided to become a professional boxer.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: When Leonard decided to turn professional, Janks Morton introduced him to Mike Trainer, a friend of his who was an attorney. Trainer talked 24 of his friends and clients into underwriting Leonard's career with an investment of $21,000 to be repaid within four years at 8% interest. Trainer then made Leonard the sole stockholder in Sugar Ray Leonard, Inc. Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali's trainer, was brought in to be Leonard's trainer and manager. Many of the people being considered wanted absolute control and a cut somewhere near the manager's traditional 33%. Dundee had a different proposition. Although he would prescribe the training procedures, he would leave the day-to-day work to Dave Jacobs and Janks Morton. He would also choose Leonard's opponents. For his services, Dundee would get 15% of Leonard's purse.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard made his professional debut on February 5, 1977, before a crowd of 10,270 at the Civic Center in Baltimore. He was paid $40,044 for the fight. His opponent was Luis "The Bull" Vega, whom he defeated by a six-round unanimous decision. After the fight, Leonard paid back his $21,000 loan to the investors.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In his fourteenth professional fight, Leonard fought his first world-ranked opponent, Floyd Mayweather, who was ranked seventeenth. The fight took place on September 9, 1978. Leonard won by a tenth-round knockout. A month later, Leonard defeated his old amateur nemesis Randy Shields by a ten-round unanimous decision.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On August 12, 1979, Leonard knocked out Pete Ranzany in four rounds to win the NABF Welterweight Championship.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The following month, he made his first title defense against Andy Price. Price, an up-and-coming contender who was sponsored by Marvin Gaye, had a reputation for prolonged bouts in earlier fights and was believed by sports reporters to defeat or give a long fight to Leonard. Although Price landed multiple good blows, Leonard knocked him out in the first round, advancing his record to 25–0 with 16 knockouts.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard fought Wilfred Benítez for the WBC Welterweight Championship on November 30, 1979, at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. There was a capacity crowd of about 4,600. Leonard received $1 million and Benitez, a two-division champion with a record of 38–0–1, received $1.2 million.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: It was a highly competitive and tactical battle. In the first round, Leonard rocked Benitez with a left hook that came off a jab and right cross. Late in the third, Leonard dropped Benitez on the seat of his pants with a stiff left jab. More embarrassed than hurt, Benitez got up quickly. Benitez started improving in the fourth, slipping numerous punches and finding the range with his right hand. "I wasn't aware I was in a championship early because I hit him so easy", Leonard said. "But then he adjusted to my style. It was like looking in a mirror".


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In the sixth, there was an accidental clash of heads, which opened a cut on the forehead of Benitez. Blood flowed down his forehead and the bridge of his nose but stayed out of his eyes.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard landed the harder punches and had Benitez hurt several times late in the fight, but Leonard couldn't put him away. Benitez was very slick. "No one, I mean no one, can make me miss punches like that", Leonard said.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Going into the final round, Leonard led by scores of 137–130, 137–133, and 136–134. The two went toe-to-toe in the fifteenth. Late in the round, Leonard dropped Benitez with a left. He got up, but after a few more punches, the referee stopped the fight. The time was 2:54 of round fifteen.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The Boxing Writers Association of America and "The Ring" named Leonard "Fighter of the Year" for 1979.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard made his first title defense in Landover, Maryland, on March 31, 1980. His opponent was Dave "Boy" Green. The British challenger had a record of 33–2. In the fourth round, Leonard knocked Green out with a devastating left hook. Leonard called it "the hardest single punch I ever threw."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On June 20, 1980, Leonard returned to the Olympic Stadium in Montreal to defend his title against Roberto Durán before a crowd of 46,317. Durán, the former Undisputed World Lightweight Champion for years, had a record of 71–1 and was the #1 welterweight contender and considered the best "Pound for Pound" fighter in the world. Durán received $1.5 million and Leonard, working for a percentage of the closed-circuit gate as well as a guarantee, received over $9 million.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Angelo Dundee counseled Leonard to box, to move side to side and not to get caught on the ropes. However, Leonard decided to fight Durán's way. "Flat-footed", he said. "I will not run."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Durán forced the issue and took the fight to Leonard, cutting off the ring and denying Leonard space to fight his fight. Durán attacked at almost every turn. Leonard battled back again and again, but he had to work just to find room to breathe and swing, at times simply to survive. In the second, Durán rocked Leonard with a left hook, sending him into the ropes. Leonard started to do better by the fifth round, finding some punching room and throwing numerous multi-punch combinations. The two fought with great intensity throughout the fight. According to Bill Nack:


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: It was, from almost the opening salvo, a fight that belonged to Durán. The Panamanian seized the evening and gave it what shape and momentum it had. He took control, attacking and driving Leonard against the ropes, bulling him back, hitting him with lefts and rights to the body as he maneuvered the champion against the ropes from corner to corner. Always moving forward, he mauled and wrestled Leonard, scoring inside with hooks and rights. For three rounds Durán drove at Sugar Ray with a fury, and there were moments when it seemed the fight could not last five. Unable to get away, unable to counter and unable to slide away to open up the ring, Leonard seemed almost helpless under the assault. Now and then he got loose and countered—left-right-left to Durán's bobbing head—but he missed punches and could not work inside, could not jab, could not mount an offense to keep Durán at bay.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Durán was awarded a unanimous decision, although it was mistakenly read as a majority decision in the ring. The scorecard of judge Angelo Poletti was incorrectly added and announced as 147–147. He actually scored it 148–147. In rounds, he had it three for Durán, two for Leonard, and ten even. "Sports Illustrated" called his scorecard "a monument to indecision." Judges Raymond Baldeyrou and Harry Gibbs scored the fight 146–144 and 145–144, respectively. Associated Press had it 144–141 for Durán, while "The New York Times" had Leonard ahead 144–142.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: "I did the best I could", Leonard said. "I think I pretty much fought from the heart." Asked if Leonard was the best he ever fought, Durán thought for a moment and then answered, "Si, si." Durán said. "He does have a heart. That's why he's living."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The rematch, billed as "Stone vs. Sugar.. Once Again", took place November 25, 1980 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans in front of 25,038 fans. Leonard received $7 million and Durán received $8 million.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Dave Jacobs disagreed with the decision to have an immediate rematch with Durán and terminated his relationship with Leonard when the rematch was made. "My idea is that he should have a tuneup fight before he fights with Roberto again", Jacobs said. "I think he won the fight with Durán, but I don't think it is healthy for him to be fighting Durán right away".


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: After the Montreal fight Durán went on a partying binge and ballooned in weight. Leonard was aware of this, and in an interview for Beyond the Glory he said: "My intention was to fight Durán ASAP because I knew Durán's habits. I knew he would indulge himself, he'd gain 40–50 lbs and then sweat it off to make 147." Unlike the fight in Montreal, Leonard used his superior speed and movement to outbox and befuddle Durán. "The whole fight, I was moving, I was moving", Leonard said. "And "Voom!" I snapped his head back with a jab. "Voom!" I snapped it back again. He tried to get me against the ropes, I'd pivot, spin off and "Pow!" Come under with a punch."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In round seven, Leonard started to taunt Durán. Leonard's most memorable punch came late in the round. Winding up his right hand, as if to throw a bolo punch, Leonard snapped out a left jab and caught Durán flush in the face. "It made his eyes water", Leonard said. He continued to taunt Durán mercilessly. He stuck out his chin, inviting Durán to hit it. Durán hesitated. Leonard kept it up, continuing to move, stop, and mug.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In the closing seconds of the eighth round, Durán turned his back to Leonard and quit, saying to referee Octavio Meyran, ""No Más"" (English: "No more"). Leonard was the winner by a technical knockout at 2:44 of round eight, regaining the WBC Welterweight Championship. Leonard led by scores of 68–66, 68–66 and 67–66.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Durán said he quit because of stomach cramps, caused by overeating after the weigh-in. "At the end of the fifth round, I got cramps in my stomach and it kept getting worse and worse", Duran later said. "I felt weaker and weaker in my body and arms." He then announced, "I am retiring from boxing right now." During the night Durán was admitted to a hospital with stomach pains, and discharged the following day.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Everyone was surprised by Durán's actions, none more so than his veteran trainers, Freddie Brown and Ray Arcel. "I was shocked", Brown said. "There was no indication that he was in pain or getting weak." Arcel was angry. "That's it", he said. "I've had it. This is terrible. I've handled thousands of fighters and never had anyone quit on me. I think he needs a psychiatrist more than he needs anything else." Durán's manager, Carlos Eleta, said, "Durán didn't quit because of stomach cramps. He quit because he was embarrassed. I "know" this." According to Randy Gordon, who witnessed Durán's antics beforehand and was in his dressing room immediately afterwards, Durán quit because of his huge eating binge prior to the fight.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: "I "made" him quit", Leonard said. "To make a man quit, to make Roberto Durán quit, was better than knocking him out."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On March 28, 1981, Leonard defended his title against Larry Bonds, the WBC sixth-ranked contender, at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York. Bonds was a southpaw, which made him a good opponent for Leonard, given that his next opponent was scheduled to be the WBA Light Middleweight Champion Ayub Kalule, a southpaw.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard was the aggressor throughout, with Bonds circling the ring. He staggered Bonds with a right in the fourth round and dropped him with a follow-up combination. Bonds got up and continued to move, with Leonard in pursuit. Leonard dropped him again in the tenth. Bonds rose but Leonard didn't let him off the hook. The referee stopped the fight with Bonds taking punishment in a corner.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard moved up to the junior middleweight division and faced Kalule on June 25, 1981, at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. Kalule, who was 36–0, had been the WBA Light Middleweight Champion for two years.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Kalule and his handlers had expected Leonard to use lateral movement against him, but Leonard chose to fight inside instead. After eight tough rounds, Leonard was ahead although Kalule appeared to be coming on strong in the eight and ninth. Leonard finally hurt him with a right to the head. Shortly afterward, Leonard dropped him with a flurry of punches. Kalule got up but the referee waved it off. Leonard celebrated his victory with a full 360-degree, no-hands flip. Despite an official stoppage time of 2.59, the fight was actually stopped at 3.06 into the round, meaning Kalule should have been saved by the bell.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Promoted as "The Showdown", Leonard fought Thomas Hearns on September 16, 1981, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to unify the World Welterweight Championship in a scheduled fifteen-rounder. They fought before a live crowd of 23,618. Hearns was paid $5.1 million, and Leonard made over $11 million. The fight grossed over $35 million. The live gate was $5.9 million, and the revenue from pay-per-view was $7.5 million.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Hearns, 32–0 with 30 knockouts, won the WBA Welterweight Championship in 1980, scoring a second-round knockout of José "Pipino" Cuevas in Detroit, Michigan. He made three successful title defenses, stopping Luis Primera, Randy Shields, and Pablo Baez.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The fight began as expected, Leonard boxing from a distance and Hearns stalking. Leonard had difficulty with Hearns' long reach and sharp jab. By the end of round five, Leonard had a growing swelling under his left eye, and Hearns had built a considerable lead on the scorecards. Leonard, becoming more aggressive, hurt Hearns in the sixth with a left hook to the chin. Leonard battered Hearns in rounds six and seven, but Hearns regrouped. Hearns started to stick and move, and he started to pile up points again. The roles reversed: Leonard became the stalker and Hearns became the boxer. The fight billed as a classic showdown between a powerful knockout artist and the best boxer/puncher the welterweight division had seen in decades devolved into a slow, tactical fight.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Hearns won rounds nine through twelve on all three scorecards. Between rounds twelve and thirteen, Angelo Dundee told Leonard, "You're blowing it, son! You're blowing it!".


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard, with a badly swollen left eye, came out roaring for the thirteenth round. After hurting Hearns with a right, Leonard exploded with a combination of punches. Hearns' legs were clearly gone and after more pressure from Leonard he was bundled through the ropes, no knockdown was given as it wasn't a punch that sent him there. Hearns managed to rise, but was dropped by a flurry of hard punches near the end of the round.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In round fourteen, after staggering Hearns with an overhand right, Leonard pinned Hearns against the ropes, where he unleashed another furious combination, prompting referee Davey Pearl to stop the contest and award Sugar Ray Leonard the Unified World Welterweight Championship. Hearns was leading by scores of 124–122, 125–122, and 125–121.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: After the fight, there was controversy due to the scoring of rounds six and seven. Even though Leonard dominated, hurting Hearns and battering him, all three judges gave both rounds to Leonard by a 10–9 margin. Many felt that the ten-point must scoring system was not properly used and those rounds should have been scored 10–8. Some also considered the stoppage premature. Veteran ringside commentator Don Dunphy said "They're stopping the fight. I don't believe it. Hearns was ahead on points." However, Emanuel Steward, Hearns' manager and trainer, said, "I felt that the referee was justified in stopping the fight ... Tommy did not have enough energy to make it through the fight."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The fight was named "Fight of the Year" by "The Ring". Leonard was named "Fighter of the Year" by "The Ring" and The Boxing Writers Association of America. He was also named "Athlete of the Year" by ABC's "Wide World of Sports" and "Sportsman of the Year" by "Sports Illustrated".


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On February 15, 1982, Leonard defended the unified title against Bruce Finch, the WBC fourth-ranked contender, in a bout at Reno, NV. Leonard knocked him out in the third round. Leonard's next fight was scheduled to be against Roger Stafford on May 14, 1982, in Buffalo, New York. While training, Leonard started to see floaters. He went to a doctor and discovered that he had a detached retina. The fight was cancelled, and Leonard had surgery to repair the retina on May 9, 1982.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On November 9, 1982, Leonard invited Marvin Hagler and other boxing dignitaries to a charity event in Baltimore, Maryland to hear him announce whether he would continue his career. Standing in a boxing ring with Howard Cosell, the master of ceremonies, Leonard announced his retirement, saying a bout with Hagler would unfortunately never happen. Leonard maintained his eye was fully healed, but that he just didn't want to box anymore.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Missing the limelight and the competition, Leonard announced in December 1983 that he was returning to the ring. Leonard boasted that he would have a couple of ten-round bouts and then take on Milton McCrory, Donald Curry, Durán, Hearns and finally Hagler. This decision was met with a torrent of criticism from fans and the media, who felt Leonard was taking unnecessary risks with his surgically repaired eye.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: A bout with Philadelphia's Kevin Howard, who was 20–4–1, was scheduled for February 25, 1984. The fight was postponed when Leonard had minor surgery on his right eye to fix a loose retina. This latest eye problem further fueled the flames of those who opposed Leonard's comeback.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Before the fight with Howard, Dave Jacobs rejoined Leonard's team in a limited role. Jacobs had quit in 1980, disagreeing with Leonard's decision to have an immediate rematch with Durán.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard and Howard fought on May 11, 1984, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Howard knocked Leonard flat on his back in the fourth round. It was the first knockdown of Leonard's professional career. Leonard came back to stop Howard in the ninth round, but the stoppage was disputed, with some feeling that the referee stopped the fight prematurely. Leonard was ahead on all three scorecards at the time of the stoppage. At the post-fight press conference, Leonard surprised everyone by announcing his retirement again, saying he just didn't have it anymore.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On March 10, 1986, Marvin Hagler knocked out John Mugabi in eleven rounds to retain the Undisputed World Middleweight Championship for the twelfth time and advance his record to 62–2–2. After the bout Hagler stated it may be his last fight. "I was ringside", Leonard said. "I'm watching John 'The Beast' Mugabi outbox Hagler. Of all people, John 'The Beast' Mugabi." It was then that Leonard decided to come back and fight Hagler. He called Mike Trainer and said, "I can beat Hagler".


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On May 1, 1986, Leonard announced on a Washington, D.C. talk show that he would return to the ring to fight Hagler. The announcement generated a lot of controversy because of Leonard's inactivity and eye injuries, yet it also excited many sports fans who had hoped to see them fight years earlier. Hagler took a few months to decide, then agreed to the match.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The fight, promoted as ""The Super Fight"" and ""The King of the Ring"", was scheduled for April 6, 1987, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Leonard was guaranteed $11 million, and Hagler was guaranteed $12 million. Hagler was a heavy favorite. The odds started at 4–1, then settled at 3–1. A paying crowd of 12,379 generated a live gate of $6.2 million. According to Bob Arum, the fight grossed $78 million (which equates to around $179 million in 2020).


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The original fight plan for Leonard was to go toe-to-toe with Hagler and try to cut him, but the plan changed about five days before the fight. Leonard got hit by sparring partner Quincy Taylor and was badly buckled. "He almost knocked me out", Leonard said. After that, Leonard decided to box Hagler.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Many were surprised that Hagler, a natural southpaw, opened the fight boxing out of an orthodox stance. After the quick and slick Leonard won the first two rounds on all three scorecards, Hagler started the third round as a southpaw. Hagler did better, but Leonard's superior speed and boxing skill still allowed him to control the fight. Hagler looked stiff and mechanical and missed the speedy Leonard time and again prompting CBS ringside commentator Gil Clancy to remark "...and is he ever missing...Leonard isn't doing anything to make him miss, he's just missing!"


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: By the fifth, Leonard, who was moving a lot, began to tire and Hagler started to get closer. Hagler buckled Leonard's knees with a right uppercut near the end of the round, which finished with Leonard on the ropes. Hagler continued to score somewhat effectively in round six. Leonard, having slowed down, was obliged to fight more and move less. However, he was able to outpunch Hagler along the ropes and got the better of several bristling exchanges. Hagler never seized total control of the fight as he had against Thomas Hearns two years earlier, when he brutalized Hearns and scored a third-round knockout. Hagler's punches lacked snap and, although he was scoring solidly to the body, he looked nothing like the powerful fighter who had dominated the middleweight division for the previous five years. Leonard's observation that the Hagler who beat John Mugabi was older and slower proved to be spot on. In rounds seven and eight, Hagler's southpaw jab was landing solidly and Leonard's counter flurries were less frequent.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Round nine was the most exciting round of the fight. Hagler hurt Leonard with a left cross and pinned him in a corner. Leonard looked to be in trouble, but he furiously fought his way out of the corner. The action see-sawed back and forth for the rest of the round, with each man having his moments. However, Hagler's moments were more spectacular and one of Hagler's cornermen: Roger Perron (in an interview that took place on an episode of HBO's "Legendary Nights" episode segments in 2003) later stated that: "the ninth round was probably Marvin (Hagler)'s, best round".


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Round ten was tame by comparison, as the pace slowed after the furious action of the previous round but with Hagler having more spectacular moments. Despite Leonard's obvious fatigue, he boxed well in the eleventh. Every time Hagler scored, Leonard came back with something flashier and more eye-catching, if not as effective. But at that point in the fight, Hagler appeared to be slightly more ring-general and clearly more aggressive. Between rounds eleven and twelve, Leonard's trainer: Angelo Dundee, implored Sugar Ray to get up off his stool yelling "We got three minutes...new champ...new champ!" Leonard yelled "Yeah!" and played to the screaming crowd. Hagler's corner was much more reserved prompting Clancy to comment: "They're talking to him like it's an IBM meeting or something...no emotion." In the final round, Hagler continued to chase Leonard. He hit Leonard with a big left hand and backed him into a corner. Leonard responded with a furious flurry, landing few punches but whipping the upset-hoping crowd into a frenzy. Hagler backed off, and Leonard danced away with Hagler in pursuit. The fight ended with Hagler and Leonard exchanging along the ropes. At the final bell, even uniformed ringside security rushed into the ring applauding and lauding Leonard's effort.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard was awarded a controversial split-decision. Judge Dave Moretti scored it 115–113 for Leonard, while judge Lou Filippo had it 115–113 for Hagler. Judge José Guerra scored the fight 118–110 for Leonard. Many felt that Hagler deserved the decision because he was the aggressor and landed the harder punches. Scottish boxing journalist Hugh McIlvanney wrote that Leonard's plan was to "steal rounds with a few flashy and carefully timed flurries...he was happy to exaggerate hand speed at the expense of power, and neither he nor two of the scorers seemed bothered by the fact that many of the punches landed on the champion's gloves and arms."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Many others felt that Leonard deservedly got the decision, arguing that Leonard landed more punches and showed better defense and ring generalship. Jim Murray, long-time sports columnist for the "Los Angeles Times", wrote, "It wasn't even close...He didn't just outpoint Hagler, he exposed him. He made him look like a guy chasing a bus. In snowshoes...Leonard repeatedly beat Hagler to the punch. When he did, he hit harder. He hit more often...He made Hagler into what he perceived him to be throughout his career—a brawler, a swarmer, a man who could club you to death only if you stood there and let him. If you moved, he was lost."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The scorecards from the ringside press and broadcast media attest to the polarizing views and opinions of the fight.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Despite requests from the Hagler camp, Leonard was uninterested in a rematch and retired on May 27, 1987. "I'll try, I'll give it a shot", Leonard said of his latest retirement. "But you guys know me." A month after Hagler's formal retirement in June 1988, Leonard would announce another comeback.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On November 7, 1988, Leonard made another comeback, facing Donny Lalonde at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. They fought for Lalonde's WBC Light Heavyweight Championship and the newly created WBC Super Middleweight Championship, which meant that Lalonde had to make 168 lbs. Many were critical of the fact that Lalonde's light heavyweight title was on the line when the weight limit of the fight with Leonard was at 168 pounds, and critical of Leonard for stipulating that his opponent—a natural 175-pounder—should weigh less than his usual fighting weight, which could possibly weaken him. However, Lalonde later told HBO's Larry Merchant that he didn't have any trouble making weight.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Lalonde, 31–2 with 26 knockouts, was guaranteed at least $6 million and Leonard was guaranteed over $10 million.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: This would be Leonard's first professional fight without Angelo Dundee. For Leonard's fight with Hagler, Dundee worked without a contract and received $175,000, which was less than 2% of Leonard's purse. Dundee was unhappy with that amount. He requested a contract for the Lalonde fight and Leonard refused. "I don't have contracts. My word is my bond", Leonard said. Janks Morton and Dave Jacobs trained Leonard for the Lalonde fight.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Lalonde's size and awkwardness troubled Leonard. In the fourth round, a right hand to the top of Leonard's head dropped him for just the second time in his career. Early in the ninth, Lalonde hurt Leonard with a right to the chin. Leonard fired back and hurt Lalonde with a right. He drove him to the ropes and unleashed a furious assault. Lalonde tried to tie up Leonard, but got dropped with a powerful left hook. He rose but was soon down again, and the fight was stopped. Judges Chuck Giampa and Franz Marti had Leonard ahead by scores of 77–74 and 77–75, respectively. Judge Stuart Kirshenbaum had Lalonde ahead 76–75.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: After the fight, Leonard vacated the light heavyweight title, but kept the super middleweight title. Also, Leonard and Janks Morton split because of personal differences. Morton was replaced as co-trainer by Pepe Correa, who had worked with Leonard for most of the previous fifteen years.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On June 12, 1989, Leonard defended the WBC Super Middleweight Championship in a rematch with Thomas Hearns at Caesar's Palace. It was promoted as "The War". Hearns was guaranteed $11 million and Leonard was guaranteed $14 million.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Hearns dropped Leonard with a right cross in the third round, but Leonard came back and battered Hearns around the ring in the fifth. Early in the seventh round, Hearns hurt Leonard but punched himself out going for the knockout. With Hearns fatigued, Leonard came back and had a strong finish to the round. Rounds nine and ten were good rounds for Leonard, but he ran into trouble in the eleventh round. Three booming rights from Hearns sent Leonard down for the second time in the fight. Knowing he needed a big finish, Leonard fought furiously and had a big final round.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The judges scored the fight a draw and Leonard retained the title. Judge Jerry Roth scored the fight 113–112 for Hearns, Judge Tom Kazmarek scored it 113–112 for Leonard, and Judge Dalby Shirley scored it 112–112. Shirley was the only judge to give Leonard a 10–8 margin in the twelfth. If he had scored it 10–9, as his two colleagues did, Hearns would have won by a split decision. Eventually, Leonard admitted that Hearns deserved the decision.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On December 7, 1989, Leonard defended the title against Roberto Durán, who was the reigning WBC Middleweight Champion. Durán was guaranteed $7.6 million and Leonard's arrangement guaranteed him over $13 million.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: For the Durán fight, Leonard cut his entourage from twenty-one to six. Dave Jacobs was one of the people let go, leaving Correa as the sole trainer. Correa was instructed not to spare the whip. "For the first time in a long time, I allowed someone to push me", Leonard said.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The fight took place at the new Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. Leonard used constant lateral movement and won by a lopsided twelve-round unanimous decision over a listless Durán. The scores were 120–110, 119–109, and 116–111. In a fight that many considered to be very boring, both fighters were booed often by the fans and many left the arena before the decision was announced. Pat Putnam of "Sports Illustrated" wrote, "Leonard gave them artistic perfection when they wanted heated battle, and they booed lustily. Most fight fans would not spend a dime to watch Van Gogh paint Sunflowers, but they would fill Yankee Stadium to see him cut off his ear." Although Leonard dominated the fight, he suffered several cuts. His lower lip was cut from a headbutt in the fourth round, his left eye was cut in the eleventh round, and his right eye was cut in the twelfth round. The cuts required a total of 60 stitches.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In August 1990, Leonard relinquished the WBC super middleweight title, saying that he was under the weight for the division. He then offered Hearns a third fight, but Hearns said he could no longer make the weight and moved up to the light heavyweight division.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: On February 9, 1991, Leonard went down to 154 lbs and fought WBC Light Middleweight Champion Terry Norris at Madison Square Garden. Leonard entered the bout as a 3-1 favorite but Norris dominated the fight, giving Leonard a heavy beating. He knocked Leonard down with a left hook in the second round, and in the seventh, he dropped Leonard again with a short right. Leonard had no answer for the skillful, younger, faster man. Leonard went the distance but lost by a lopsided decision. The scores were 120–104, 119–103, and 116–110. After the verdict was announced, Leonard announced his retirement. "It took this fight to show me it is no longer my time", Leonard said. "Tonight was my last fight. I know how Hagler felt now."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In October 1996, the 40-year-old Leonard announced that he was coming out of retirement to fight 34-year-old Héctor Camacho for the lightly regarded International Boxing Council (IBC) Middleweight Championship. Camacho, a light-hitting southpaw, was a three-time world champion with a record of 62–3–1. However, Camacho was also considered to be past his prime. Leonard decided to fight Camacho after commentating on Camacho's fight with the 45-year-old Roberto Durán the previous year, describing the disputed unanimous decision as "an early Christmas gift".


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard blamed his poor performance against Norris on lack of motivation, a rib injury, moving down in weight, and divorce, which was being litigated while he was in training. "It was stupid for me to fight Norris at 154 lbs", Leonard said. "This is different. I'm in the best shape possible."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: For the Camacho fight, Leonard had a new trainer, Adrian Davis. "He's a great trainer, a throwback", Leonard said. "He has really helped me get ready."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In January 1997, it was announced that Leonard had been voted into the International Boxing Hall Of Fame in Canastota, New York. The rules state that a boxer must be retired for five years before being eligible for induction. When the vote took place, Leonard had been retired for more than five years, therefore, he was eligible, even though he had a fight scheduled. The induction ceremony was on June 15, 1997.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: The fight with Camacho took place on March 1, 1997, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Camacho applied pressure from the opening bell and started to score well in the third. He continued to score well in the fourth and opened a cut above Leonard's right eye. In the fifth, Camacho dropped Leonard with a right followed by two left uppercuts. Leonard got up, but was unable to ward off Camacho. The referee stopped the fight with Camacho teeing off on a defenseless Leonard on the ropes. It was the only time in Leonard's career that he was knocked out.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Afterward, Leonard retired again, saying, "For sure, my career is definitely over for me in the ring." However, less than a week after the fight, Leonard said he planned to fight again. He blamed his loss on a torn right calf muscle. His doctor suggested that he cancel the fight, but Leonard wanted to go through with it. Before the fight, he was given a shot of novocaine.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard said he planned to have a series of tuneup fights before fighting a champion. He was scheduled to fight Tony Menefee on February 15, 1998, in Australia, but he pulled out of the fight, saying that he didn't have the motivation. The Camacho fight was Leonard's last. He finished his career with a record of 36–3–1 with 25 knockouts.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard has worked as a boxing analyst for ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, HBO and EPIX. His relationship with HBO lasted for more than a decade. It ended in 1990, after HBO was not offered an opportunity to bid on the telecast rights to Leonard's fight with Terry Norris. HBO believed it would be inappropriate for Leonard to continue with them if they couldn't bid on his fights. Leonard's attorney, Mike Trainer, said, "There never has been a linkage between his broadcasting and his fighting."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard has provided commercial endorsements for companies including Coca-Cola, EA Sports, Ford, Nabisco, Revlon and 7 Up. His most famous commercial was a 7 Up ad he did with his son, Ray Jr., Roberto Durán and Durán's son Roberto Jr. in the early 1980s. Leonard is among the most sought-after motivational/inspirational speakers in the world today. His speech, entitled "Power" (Prepare, Overcome and Win Every Round), is consistently booked with major Fortune 500 companies throughout the United States and abroad.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard has also worked as an actor. He has appeared in numerous television shows, including "Half & Half", "L.A. Heat", "Married... with Children", "Renegade" and "Tales From The Crypt". He has also appeared in several movies, including "I Spy" and most recently "The Fighter" (2010), starring Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg. This movie brought back memories of his fight with Dicky Eklund. He also worked as an adviser in the 2011 robot boxing film "Real Steel". Leonard served as host and mentor to the aspiring fighters on "The Contender". Sylvester Stallone, who co-hosted during the first season, was one of the executive producers, along with Mark Burnett. When Leonard left the show, he was replaced as host by Tony Danza for the final season.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In 2001, Leonard launched Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing Inc., a boxing promotional company, and announced the company's strategic partnership with ESPN. Together, Leonard and ESPN would produce and promote "Sugar Ray Leonard and ESPN II Presents Friday Night Fights", which would air the first Friday of every month for twelve months. Leonard's boxing promotional company was dissolved in 2004. He had a falling out with partner Bjorn Rebney, whom he called "a cancer in my company." Speaking of his promotional company, Leonard said, "We did some great shows with evenly matched fights. I took great pride in it. But the TV show came about and made my decision a lot easier. I already had it in the back of my mind to dissolve the company. The working environment was not healthy."


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard competed on season 12 of Dancing with the Stars, which premiered on Monday, March 21, 2011, on ABC. His partner was Anna Trebunskaya. He was voted off in Week 4 of the show. During his appearance on "The Colbert Report" in 2011, Leonard was defeated by host Stephen Colbert in a thumb wrestling contest. He appeared as a guest at the chef's table, along with Tito Ortiz, during the tenth season of "Hell's Kitchen". He is the celebrity spokesperson for the Atlanta law firm John Foy and Associates, PC.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard was also the subject of a "Seinfeld" episode (season 6, episode 22) where George tries to flatter his boss by saying he looks like Sugar Ray Leonard. The real Leonard (a Seinfeld fan) mentioned that he was told about the episode by friends and family, but had never seen it for himself until a friend gave him the DVD set for a gift.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In March 2019, Leonard made a guest appearance on the popular daily morning show on YouTube, "Good Mythical Morning", hosted by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. In this episode of the "March Milkness" series (where Rhett and Link created a March Madness style bracket to determine the best breakfast cereal), Leonard was brought in to break a tie between the Fruity Region Champion, Froot Loops, and the Chocolatey Region Champion, Oreo O's. His decision was to push Froot Loops onto the Finals, where they were taken out by Cinnamon Toast Crunch.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard married his high school sweetheart, Juanita Wilkinson, in January 1980. Their six-year-old son, Ray Jr., served as the ring bearer. In 1984, they had another son, Jarrell. They were divorced in 1990. During divorce proceedings, Juanita Leonard testified that her husband physically abused her while under the influence of alcohol. She also said he was an occasional cocaine user. In his testimony, Leonard confirmed his wife's claims and went on to reveal that the problems of their marriage were not due to drug and alcohol use.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: After the "Los Angeles Times" broke the story, Leonard held a press conference and publicly acknowledged that the accusations were true. He said he started using medication after he retired in 1982, following surgery to repair a detached retina. "I wanted more", Leonard said. "I wanted that arena. I didn't want anyone to tell me my career had to end." "I decided to search for a substitute...I resorted to cocaine. I used when I felt bad, I used when I missed competing at that level", he said. "It was a crutch, something that enabled me to forget." He said he quit using drugs in early 1986, when he woke up one morning and "what I saw in the mirror was scary." "I can never erase the pain or the scars I have made through my stupidity, my selfishness", Leonard said. "All I can do is say I'm sorry, but that is not enough." In 2011, Leonard revealed in an NPR interview that he had been free of alcohol since July 2006.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In 1989, Leonard was introduced to Bernadette Robi by Kenny G at a Luther Vandross concert. Robi is the daughter of Paul Robi, one of the original Platters, and she is the ex-wife of Lynn Swann. Leonard and Robi were married at Leonard's $8.7 million estate in Pacific Palisades, California in August 1993. At the wedding ceremony, the grounds were converted into a garden with 10,000 roses and blossoms of other flowers flown in from the Netherlands.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard is also the godfather of Khloé Kardashian and has appeared on many episodes of "Keeping Up With The Kardashians".


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: For many years, Leonard has been the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk for a Cure and is actively involved in raising both awareness and funds.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs in 2009. The Senate hearing was titled "Type 1 Diabetes Research: Real Progress and Real Hope for a Cure". He testified about the burden of diabetes and the need for continued research funding to find a cure.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: Leonard and his wife, Bernadette, founded the Sugar Ray Leonard Foundation to support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and its annual Walk for a Cure. In 2009, the foundation expanded to support programs that help people rebuild their communities in ten cities across the United States. It supports accessible housing, healthcare services, and educational services and job training.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In 2007 he was awarded The Ambassador Award of Excellence by the LA Sports & Entertainment Commission at the Riviera Country Club for his continued community involvement.


title: Sugar Ray Leonard

text: In his autobiography "The Big Fight: My Life in and out of the Ring", published in June 2011, Leonard reveals that as a young boxer he was the victim of sexual abuse from an Olympic trainer as well as another man, a benefactor. He has since made public appearances to bring attention to the issue of child sex abuse, declaring himself a "poster child" for the cause and encouraging victims to report their abuse.


title: David Icke

text: David Vaughan Icke (; born 29 April 1952) is an English conspiracy theorist and a former footballer and sports broadcaster. He has written over 20 books, self-published since the mid-1990s, and spoken in more than 25 countries.


title: David Icke

text: In 1990, Icke visited a psychic who told him he was on Earth for a purpose and would receive messages from the spirit world. This led him to claim in 1991 to be a "Son of the Godhead" and that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He repeated this on the BBC show "Wogan". His appearance led to public ridicule. Books Icke wrote over the next 11 years developed his world view of a New Age conspiracy. Reaction to his endorsement of an antisemitic forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", in "The Robots' Rebellion" (1994) and in "And the Truth Shall Set You Free" (1995) led his then publisher to decline further books, which he has self-published since then.


title: David Icke

text: Icke contends that the universe consists of "vibrational" energy and infinite dimensions sharing the same space. He claims that there is an inter-dimensional race of reptilian beings, the Archons or Anunnaki, which have hijacked the Earth. Further, a genetically modified human–Archon hybrid race of reptilian shape shifters – the Babylonian Brotherhood, Illuminati or "elite" – manipulate events to keep humans in fear, so that the Archons can feed off the resulting "negative energy". He claims that many public figures belong to the Babylonian Brotherhood and propel humanity towards a global fascist state or New World Order, a post-truth era ending freedom of speech. He sees the only way to defeat such "Archontic" influence is for people to wake up to the truth and fill their hearts with love. Critics have accused Icke of being antisemitic and a Holocaust denier with his theories of reptilians serving as a deliberate "code". Icke strongly denies these claims.


title: David Icke

text: The middle son of three boys born seven years apart, Icke was born in Leicester General Hospital to Beric Vaughan Icke and Barbara J. Cooke, who were married in Leicester in 1951. Beric Icke served in the Royal Air Force as a medical orderly during World War II, and after the war became a clerk in the Gents clock factory. The family lived in a terraced house on Lead Street in the centre of Leicester, an area that was demolished in the mid-1950s as part of the city's slum clearance.


title: David Icke

text: When David Icke was three, around 1955, they moved to the Goodwood estate, one of the council estates the post-war Labour government built. "To say we were skint," he wrote in 1993, "is like saying it is a little chilly at the North Pole." He recalls having to hide under a window or chair when the councilman came for the rent; after knocking, the rent man would walk around the house peering through windows. His mother never explained that it was about the rent; she just told Icke to hide. He wrote in 2003 that he still gets a fright when someone knocks on the door. He attended Whitehall Infant School, and then Whitehall Junior School.


title: David Icke

text: Icke has said he made no effort at school, but when he was nine he was chosen for the junior school's third-year football team. He writes that this was the first time he had succeeded at anything, and he came to see football as his way out of poverty. He played in goal, which he wrote suited the loner in him and gave him a sense of living on the edge between hero and villain.


title: David Icke

text: After failing his 11-plus exam in 1963, he was sent to the city's Crown Hills Secondary Modern (rather than the local grammar school), where he was given a trial for the Leicester Boys Under-14 team. He left school at 15 after being talent-spotted by Coventry City, who signed him up in 1967 as their youth team's goalkeeper. In 1968 he played in the Coventry City youth team that were runners up to Burnley in the F.A. Youth Cup. He also played for Oxford United's reserve team and Northampton Town, on loan from Coventry.


title: David Icke

text: Rheumatoid arthritis in his left knee, which spread to the right knee, ankles, elbows, wrists and hands, stopped him from making a career out of football. Despite stating that he was often in agony during training, Icke managed to play part-time for Hereford United, including in the first team when they were in the fourth, and later in the third, division of the English Football League. But in 1973, at the age of 21, the pain in his joints became so severe that he was forced to retire.


title: David Icke

text: Icke met his first wife, Linda Atherton, in May 1971 at a dance at the Chesford Grange Hotel near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Shortly after they met, Icke left home following one of a number of frequent arguments he had started having with his father. His father was upset that Icke's arthritis was interfering with his football career. Icke moved into a bedsit and worked in a travel agency, travelling to Hereford twice a week in the evenings to play football.


title: David Icke

text: Icke and Atherton married on 30 September 1971, four months after they met. Their daughter was born in March 1975, followed by one son in December 1981, and another in November 1992. The couple divorced in 2001 but remained friends, and Atherton continued to work as Icke's business manager.


title: David Icke

text: The loss of Icke's position with Hereford meant that he and his wife had to sell their home, and for several weeks they lived apart, each moving in with their parents. In 1973 Icke found a job as a reporter with the weekly "Leicester Advertiser", through a contact who was a sports editor at the "Daily Mail". He moved on to the Leicester News Agency, did some work for BBC Radio Leicester as its football reporter, then worked his way up through the "Loughborough Monitor", the "Leicester Mercury" and BRMB Radio in Birmingham.


title: David Icke

text: In 1976, Icke worked for two months in Saudi Arabia, helping with the national football team. His position on the team was planned to be a long-term position, but Icke decided to stay in the UK after his first holiday back. After his return to the UK, BRMB decided to give him his job back, after which he successfully applied to "Midlands Today" at the BBC's Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham, a job that included on-air appearances. One of the earliest stories he covered there was the murder of Carl Bridgewater, the paperboy shot during a robbery in 1978.


title: David Icke

text: In 1981, Icke became a sports presenter for the BBC's national programme "Newsnight", which had begun the previous year. Two years later, on 17 January 1983, he appeared on the first edition of the BBC's "Breakfast Time", British television's first national breakfast show, and presented the sports news there until 1985. In 1983 he co-hosted "Grandstand", at the time the BBC's flagship national sports programme. He also published his first book that year, "It's a Tough Game, Son!", about how to break into football.


title: David Icke

text: Icke and his family moved in 1982 to Ryde on the Isle of Wight. His relationship with "Grandstand" was short-lived. He wrote that a new editor arrived in 1983 who appeared not to like him, but he continued working for BBC Sport until 1990, often on bowls and snooker programmes, and at the 1988 Summer Olympics. Icke was by then a household name, but has said that a career in television began to lose its appeal to him; he found television workers insecure, shallow and sometimes vicious.


title: David Icke

text: In August 1990, his contract with the BBC was terminated when he initially refused to pay the Community Charge (also known as the "poll tax"), a local tax Margaret Thatcher's government introduced that year. He ultimately paid it, but his announcement that he was willing to go to prison rather than pay prompted the BBC, by charter an impartial public-service broadcaster, to distance itself from him.


title: David Icke

text: Icke began to flirt with alternative medicine and New Age philosophies in the 1980s in an effort to relieve his arthritis, and this encouraged his interest in Green politics. He joined the Green Party and became a national spokesperson within six months. His second book, "It Doesn't Have To Be Like This", an outline of his views on the environment, was published in 1989.


title: David Icke

text: Icke wrote that 1989 was a time of considerable personal despair, and it was during this period that he said he began to feel a presence around him. He often describes how he felt it while alone in a hotel room in March 1990, and finally asked, "If there is anybody here, will you please contact me because you are driving me up the wall!" Days later, in a newsagent's shop in Ryde, he felt a force pull his feet to the ground and heard a voice guide him toward some books. One of them was "Mind to Mind" (1989) by Betty Shine, a psychic healer in Brighton. He read the book, then wrote to her requesting a consultation about his arthritis.


title: David Icke

text: Icke visited Shine four times. During the third meeting, on 29 March 1990, Icke claims to have felt something like a spider's web on his face, and Shine told him she had a message from Wang Ye Lee of the spirit world.


title: David Icke

text: Icke had been sent to heal the earth, she said, and would become famous but would face opposition. The spirit world was going to pass ideas to him, which he would speak about to others. He would write five books in three years; in 20 years a new flying machine would allow us to go wherever we wanted and time would have no meaning; and there would be earthquakes in unusual places because the inner earth was being destabilised by having oil taken from under the seabed.


title: David Icke

text: In February 1991, Icke visited a pre-Inca Sillustani burial ground near Puno, Peru, where he felt drawn to a particular circle of waist-high stones. As he stood in the circle he had two thoughts: that people would be talking about this in 100 years, and that it would be over when it rained. His body shook as though plugged into an electrical socket, he wrote, and new ideas poured into him. Then it started raining and the experience ended. He described it as the kundalini (a term from Hindu yoga) activating his chakras, or energy centres, triggering a higher level of consciousness.


title: David Icke

text: There followed what Icke called his "turquoise period". He had been channelling for some time, he wrote, and had received a message through automatic writing that he was a "Son of the Godhead", interpreting "Godhead" as the "Infinite Mind". He began to wear only the colour turquoise, often a turquoise shell suit, a colour he saw as a conduit for positive energy. He also started working on his third book, and the first of his New-Age period, "The Truth Vibrations".


title: David Icke

text: In August 1990, before his visit to Peru, Icke met Deborah Shaw, an English psychic based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. When he returned from Peru they began a relationship, with the apparent blessing of Icke's wife. In March 1991 Shaw began living with the couple, a short-lived arrangement that the press called the "turquoise triangle". Shaw changed her name to Mari Shawsun, while Icke's wife became Michaela, which she said was an aspect of the Archangel Michael.


title: David Icke

text: The relationship with Shaw led to the birth of a daughter in December 1991, although she and Icke had by then ceased their relationship. Icke wrote in 1993 that he decided not to visit his daughter and had seen her only once, at Shaw's request. Icke's wife gave birth to the couple's second son in November 1992.


title: David Icke

text: In March 1991, Icke resigned from the Green Party during a party conference, telling them he was about to be at the centre of "tremendous and increasing controversy", and winning a standing ovation from delegates after the announcement.


title: David Icke

text: A week later, shortly after his father died, Icke and his wife, Linda Atherton, along with their daughter and Deborah Shaw, held a press conference to announce that Icke was a son of the Godhead. He told reporters the world was going to end in 1997. It would be preceded by a hurricane around the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans, eruptions in Cuba, disruption in China, a hurricane in Derry, and an earthquake on the Isle of Arran. The information was being given to them by voices and automatic writing, he said. Los Angeles would become an island, New Zealand would disappear, and the cliffs of Kent would be underwater by Christmas.


title: David Icke

text: The headlines following Icke's press conference attracted requests for interviews from Nicky Campbell's BBC Radio One programme, for Terry Wogan's prime-time "Wogan" show, and Fern Britton's ITV chat show.


title: David Icke

text: Wogan introduced the 1991 segment with "The world as we know it is about to end". Amid laughter from the audience, Icke demurred when asked if he was the son of God, replying that Jesus would have been laughed at too, and repeated that Britain would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. Without these, "the Earth will cease to exist". When Icke said laughter was the best way to remove negativity, Wogan replied of the audience: "But they're laughing "at" you. They're not laughing with you." The BBC was criticised for allowing it to go ahead; Des Christy of "The Guardian" called it a "media crucifixion".


title: David Icke

text: The interview led to a difficult period for Icke. In May 1991, police were called to the couple's home after a crowd of over 100 youths gathered outside, chanting "We want the Messiah" and "Give us a sign, David". Icke told Jon Ronson in 2001:


title: David Icke

text: In 2006, Wogan interviewed Icke again for a special "Wogan Now & Then" series. Wogan was apologetic for his conduct in the 1991 interview. However, in his autobiography, "Mustn't Grumble", Wogan described Icke as being a "ranting demagogue convinced we were all manipulated sheep".


title: David Icke

text: The "Wogan" interview separated Icke from his previous life, he wrote in 2003, although he considered it the making of him in the end, giving him the courage to develop his ideas without caring what anyone thought. His book "The Truth Vibrations", inspired by his experience in Peru, was published in 1991.


title: David Icke

text: Between 1992 and 1994, he wrote five books, all published by mainstream publishers, four in 1993. "Love Changes Everything" (1992), influenced by the "channelling" work of Deborah Shaw, is a theosophical work about the origin of the planet, in which Icke writes with admiration about Jesus. "Days of Decision" (1993) is an 86-page summary of his interviews after the 1991 press conference; it questions the historicity of Jesus but accepts the existence of the Christ spirit. Icke's autobiography, "In the Light of Experience", was published the same year, followed by "Heal the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Personal and Planetary Transformation" (1993).


title: David Icke

text: Icke's "The Robots' Rebellion" (1994), a book published by Gateway, attracted allegations that his work was antisemitic. According to historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, the book contains "all the familiar beliefs and paranoid clichés" of the US conspiracists and militia. It claims that a plan for world domination by a shadowy cabal, perhaps extraterrestrial, was laid out in "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (c. 1897).


title: David Icke

text: "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is an anti-Semitic literary forgery, probably written under the direction of the Russian secret police in Paris, purporting to reveal a conspiracy by the Jewish people to achieve global domination. It was exposed as a forgery in 1920 by Lucien Wolf and the following year by Philip Graves in "The Times". Once exposed, it disappeared from mainstream discourse until interest in it was renewed by the American far right in the 1950s. Interest in it was further spread by conspiracy groups on the Internet. According to Michael Barkun, Icke's reliance on the "Protocols" in "The Robots' Rebellion" is "the first of a number of instances in which Icke moves into the dangerous terrain of antisemitism".


title: David Icke

text: Icke took both the extraterrestrial angle and the focus on the "Protocols" from "Behold a Pale Horse" (1991) by Milton William Cooper, who was associated with the American militia movement; chapter 15 of Cooper's book reproduces the "Protocols" in full. "The Robots' Rebellion" refers repeatedly to the "Protocols", calling them the "Illuminati protocols", and defining "Illuminati" as the "Brotherhood elite at the top of the pyramid of secret societies world-wide". Icke adds that the "Protocols" were not the work of the Jewish people, but of Zionists.


title: David Icke

text: "The Robots' Rebellion" was greeted with dismay by the Green Party's executive. Despite the controversy over the press conference and the "Wogan" interview, they had allowed Icke to address the party's annual conference in 1992 – a decision that led one of its principal speakers, Sara Parkin, to resign – but after the publication of "The Robot's Rebellion" they moved to ban him. Icke wrote to "The Guardian" in September 1994 denying that "The Robots' Rebellion" was anti-Semitic, and rejecting racism, sexism and prejudice of any kind, while insisting that whoever had written the "Protocols" "knew the game plan" for the twentieth century.


title: David Icke

text: Icke's next manuscript, "And the Truth Shall Set You Free" (1995), contained a chapter questioning aspects of the Holocaust, which caused a rift with his publisher, Gateway. In the book Icke suggested that Jews funded the Holocaust by quoting and seconding Gary Allen's claim that "The Warburgs, part of the Rothschild empire, helped finance Adolf Hitler". In his view, schools "indoctrinate children with the unchallenged version of events" with the mainstream account of the Holocaust thanks to their use of free copies of the film "Schindler's List" (1993). After borrowing £15,000 from a friend, Icke established Bridge of Love Publications, later called David Icke Books. He self-published "And the Truth Shall Set You Free" and all his subsequent books.


title: David Icke

text: According to Lewis and Kahn, Icke aimed to consolidate all conspiracy theories into one project with unlimited explanatory power. His books sold 140,000 copies between 1998 and 2011, at a value of over £2 million. Thirty thousand copies of "The Biggest Secret" (1999) were in print months after publication, according to Icke, and it was reprinted six times between 1999 and 2006. His 2002 book "Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster" became a long-standing top-five bestseller in South Africa. By 2006, his website was gaining 600,000 hits a week, and by 2011 his books had been translated into 11 languages.


title: David Icke

text: Icke has held public lectures around the world, and by 2006 had spoken in at least 25 countries. He spoke for seven hours to 2,500 people at the Brixton Academy, London, in 2008, and the same year addressed the University of Oxford's debating society, the Oxford Union. His book tour for "Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More" (2010) included a sold-out talk to 2,100 in New York City and £83,000 worth of ticket sales in Melbourne. In October 2012, he spoke for eleven hours to 6,000 people at London's Wembley Arena.


title: David Icke

text: In 1997 Icke met his second wife, Pamela Leigh Richards, in Jamaica. He and Linda Atherton divorced in 2001, and he and Richards were married the same year. They separated in 2008 and divorced in 2011.


title: David Icke

text: Icke stood for parliament in the 2008 by-election for Haltemprice and Howden (a constituency in the East Riding of Yorkshire), on the issue of "Big Brother – The Big Picture". He came 12th out of 26 candidates, with 110 votes (0.46%), resulting in a lost deposit. He explained that he was standing because "if we don't face this now we are going to have some serious explaining to do when we are asked by our children and grandchildren what we were doing when the global fascist state was installed. 'I was watching "EastEnders", dear' will not be good enough."


title: David Icke

text: In November 2013, Icke launched an Internet television station, The People's Voice, broadcast from London. He founded the station after crowdsourcing over £300,000 and worked for it as a volunteer until March 2014. Later that year the station stopped broadcasting.


title: David Icke

text: Icke combines New Age philosophical discussion about the universe and consciousness with conspiracy theories about public figures being reptilian humanoids and paedophiles. He argues in favour of reincarnation; a collective consciousness that has intentionality; modal realism (that other possible worlds exist alongside ours); and the so-called law of attraction (that good and bad thoughts can attract experiences).


title: David Icke

text: In "The Biggest Secret" (1999), he introduced the idea that many prominent figures derive from the Anunnaki, a reptilian race from the Draco constellation. In "Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More" (2012), he identified the Moon (and later Saturn) as the source of holographic experiences, broadcast by the reptiles, that humanity interprets as reality.


title: David Icke

text: Icke is an opponent of the scientific method, describing it as "bollocks" in 2013. When asked by "The Sunday Times" to explain the existence of television, he said "It's not that "all" science is bollocks," but rather "[t]he basis of the way science judges reality is bollocks." He also thinks climate change is a hoax.


title: David Icke

text: Icke believes that the universe is made up of "vibrational" energy, and consists of an infinite number of dimensions that share the same space, just like television and radio frequencies, and that some people can tune their consciousness to other wavelengths. He stated in an interview with "The Guardian" that:


title: David Icke

text: Our five senses can access only a tiny frequency range, like a radio tuned to one station. In the space you are occupying now are all the radio and television stations broadcasting to your area. You can't see them and they can't see each other because they are on different wavelengths. But move your radio dial and suddenly there they are, one after the other. It is the same with the reality we experience here as "life". What we call the "world" and the "universe" is only one frequency range in an infinite number sharing the same space.


title: David Icke

text: Icke believes that time is an illusion; there is no past or future, and only the "infinite now" is real, and that humans are an aspect of consciousness, or infinite awareness, which he describes as "all that there is, has been, and ever can be".


title: David Icke

text: Icke believes that an inter-dimensional race of reptilian beings called the Archons have hijacked the earth and are stopping humanity from realising its true potential. He claims they are the same beings as the Anunnaki, deities from the Babylonian creation myth the "Enûma Eliš", and the fallen angels, or Watchers, who mated with human women in the Biblical apocrypha.


title: David Icke

text: He believes that a genetically modified human/Archon hybrid race of shape-shifting reptilians, known as the "Babylonian Brotherhood" or the Illuminati, manipulate global events to keep humans in constant fear, so the Archons can feed off the "negative energy" this creates. In "The Biggest Secret", Icke identified the Brotherhood as descendants of reptilians from the constellation Draco, and said they live in caverns inside the earth.


title: David Icke

text: Icke claims the first reptilian-human breeding programmes took place 200,000–300,000 years ago (perhaps creating Adam), and the third (and latest) 7,000 years ago. He claims the hybrids of the third programme, which are more Anunnaki than human, currently control the world. He writes in "The Biggest Secret", "The Brotherhood which controls the world today is the modern expression of the Babylonian Brotherhood of reptile-Aryan priests and 'royalty'". Icke states that they came together in Sumer after "the flood", but originated in the Caucasus. He explains that when he uses the term "Aryan" he means "the white race."


title: David Icke

text: Icke has stated that the reptilians come from not only another planet but another dimension, the lower level of the fourth dimension (the "lower astral dimension"), the one nearest the physical world. From this dimension they control the planet, although just as fourth-dimensional reptilians control us, they in turn are controlled by a fifth dimension. Michael Barkun argues that Icke's introduction of different dimensions allowed him to skip awkward questions about how the reptilians got here. Icke believes the only way this "Archontic" influence can be defeated is if people wake up to "the truth" and fill their hearts with love.


title: David Icke

text: Icke briefly introduced his ideas about ancient astronauts in "The Robot's Rebellion" (1994), citing Milton William Cooper's "Behold a Pale Horse" (1991), and expanded it in "And the Truth Shall Set You Free" (1995), citing Barbara Marciniak's "Bringers of the Dawn" (1992).


title: David Icke

text: Religious studies lecturer David G. Robertson writes that Icke's reptilian idea is adapted from Zecharia Sitchin's "The 12th Planet" (1976), combined with material from Credo Mutwa, a Zulu healer. Sitchin suggested that the Anunnaki came to Earth for its precious metals. Icke has said that they came for what he refers to as "mono-atomic gold", which he claims can increase the capacity of the nervous system ten-thousandfold, and that after ingesting it the Anunnaki can process vast amounts of information, speed up trans-dimensional travel, and shapeshift from reptilian to human. Lewis and Kahn argue that Icke is using allegory to depict the alien, and alienating, nature of global capitalism. Icke has said he is not using allegory.


title: David Icke

text: As of 2003, Icke claims the reptilian bloodline includes all (then 43) American presidents, three British and two Canadian prime ministers, several Sumerian kings and Egyptian pharaohs, and a smattering of celebrities. Key bloodlines are said to include the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, various European aristocratic families, the establishment families of the Eastern United States, and the British House of Windsor. Icke claimed he saw British Prime Minister Ted Heath's eyes turn entirely "jet black" while the two men waited for a Sky News interview in 1989. He confirmed to Andrew Neil in May 2016 that he believes the British royal family are shape-shifting lizards. In 2001, Icke said the Queen Mother was "seriously reptilian". The Rothschilds, in Icke's opinion, are also blood-drinking Satan-worshipers, which Daniel Allington and David Toube argued in 2018 was part of a revival of medieval anti-Semitic attitudes towards Jews.


title: David Icke

text: Icke sometimes calls the reptilian plot the "unseen". After a 2018 talk by Icke in Southport, Merseyside, Michael Marshall reported:


title: David Icke

text: Critics view Icke's "reptilians" and other theories as anti-Semitic, and accuse him of Holocaust denial. Critics claim Icke's reptilians are symbolic representations of Jews, which Icke called "total friggin' nonsense", adding, "this is not a plot on the world by Jewish people". Icke has rejected the assertion he is a Holocaust denier.


title: David Icke

text: Icke states that at the apex of the Babylonian Brotherhood stand the Global Elite, and at the top of the Global Elite are what Icke has referred to as the "Prison Wardens". Icke claims the brotherhood's goal, or their "Great Work of Ages", is a microchipped population, a world government, and a global Orwellian fascist state or New World Order, which he claims will be a post-truth era where freedom of speech is ended.