What the greatest decision performance in the history of boxing ever? This is not just the best win, but best performance. Which means if there's no footage of the fight, it's real hard to justify. Weighting is as follow: 1. /10 Quality of Opponent at time of fight (ranking, previous fight, etc.) 2. /10 Quality of Offense demonstrated 3. /10 Quality of Defense demonstrated 4. /10 Dominance/Wideness of win 5. /10 Extra points for: overcoming stylistic disadvantage, knockdowns, etc. Example: Duran over Leonard 1. 9/10 quality of leonard 2. 9.5/10 offense 3. 8.5/10 defense 4. 4/10 dominance 5. 8/10 for overcoming physical disadvantages Total: 39/50
he gets 9 for being a TINY bit green at the time of the fight. that wasn't the best leonard, who was a 10. i agree with dominance at 7 (i had it wide for duran, last time about 5 points ahead) but the consensus is it was very tight. i bowed to the consensus unfortunately
I wouldn't say Leonard was green. He'd looked as good as he ever would in his previous 4 fights, including the best performance of his career against Benitez.
fair enough:good i personally think he improved after duran, learning from the loss but it's splitting hairs
I would nominate Pea vs. Nelson... I don't think it gets much more dominating a victory than that, against a world class foe...
I think he became a better judge of when he was winning, when he losing and when he had to step on the gas. Seems he developed that ali like intuition of knowing what was needed to get the win
Fair points as he demonstrated this in the Hearns fight. But I think he had showed this previously in the Benitez fight
true, but it was much more dramatic with hearns i see your point, though i still feel he perfected this skill post duran.
I tend to think fighters get a little less credit for beating a 'green' fighter than they should. I mean Ernesto Marcel beating Alexis Arguello, and this are two prime examples of it. I mean Ray Leonard and Arguello were great fighters at the time, especially Leonard.
That Arguello had already laid waste to Legra inside a round. And IMO upped the pace like he'd have had to catch up to Marcel, an urgency that he sometimes failed to outwardly express at least as he became a more rounded and methodical puncher using his patience and poise to pick holes in his opponent and land the right punches. Brilliant win for Marcel IMO, especially considering the ebb and flow of the contest. Alexis was there IMO.