Sugar Ray Leonard Resume

:smoke

 

I like him even more now.

 

:goodGood to see you're still around.

 

He has a fair case for making top 10 p4p all time, although arguments for those placements have gotten pretty complicated over the years.. Not even sure where I stand on the issue anymore. But he captured the olympic gold medal.. Beat hall of fame champions in Benitez, Duran and Hearns when they were all basically prime. Came out of retirement as a huge underdog to upset Marvin Hagler, even though both were past it and the decision controversial.. Still a huge win.. And his victories over Ayub Kalule and Don Lalonde weren't too bad either.. He definitely has the best resume of anyone with 40 or less fights and regardless of it being short, its still better than a lot of records with far more bouts than that.. Shame that he lost a few of his best years to that eye injury along with some of the issues he had going on outside the ring.. I absolutely think he could have beaten Donald Curry around 1985 had he gotten himself in shape enough to do it. In fact he could have accumulated several stellar wins between 1982-1987 had his career stayed on track.. Really an amazing fighter, personality and credit to the sport.

 

The two title thing was bogus for sure, and clearly made for Leonard's friggin' ego.

But that said, Lalonde no doubt was visibly bigger than Leonard and no pushover. I was impressed with both in this fight, but especially Leonard.
Like Hearns 1, he starts out kinda cautious, gets hurt, thinks "screw this ****" and ends up being the stalker, KO'ing his man. Brilliant finish.

Lalonde was really just a 'patsy' but he proved that he could fight. I love this fight, myself.

 

I remember the Canadians going wild when Donny decked Ray in the fourth round... And then myself jumping up and down when Ray just hammered away at him in the ninth... It was a moment that was very...... American...

 

I don't have anything against the fight itself, just what they were fighting for.

I do like people fighting for titles to be a the weight the champion is at, not what the challenger feels is in his best interest. And I'm not a fan of money influencing that whole issue. But Lalonde did give a pretty good account of himself, but obviously if he wasn't weight drained Leonard wouldn't have won.

As a Canadian, I was none too happy about the whole thing except perhaps in the 4th round when it looked like Donny was going to pull off the win. lol

 

:goodIm delighted you enjoyed that comment!

 

:good

 

When you beat 4 ATGs (at least 3 of them in their prime and 1 of them near his prime), you are a TOP 10 ATG in my book.

 

I probably consider myself a Leonard supporter, but 3 "prime" all-time greats is a bit of a misleading claim, I think. I would argue at best 2 - Hearns and Benitez. Duran was clearly not prime at 147 - given his frame (never mind the age); and Hagler showed that he had slowed down greatly against Mugabi.

 

Kalule was a southpaw....and an ABC Jr. MW World Champion when SRL beat him prior to the WW showdown with Hearns.

Competitive fight for SRL.

 

Welcome to the site :hi:


Yes,in a comparatively brief career,taking into account the interuptions,Leonard's resume was very impressive.

 

You could go in two directions with SRL.

He lost to a jumped-up LW in their most important meeting.

He was well behind on the cards when he exposed Tommy's chin in a fight that would have been with the judges after 12 nowadays.

He waited till Hagler was old before winning a very controversial decision there.

His only seemingly unblemished 'great' victory was against a somewhat green Benitez.


Aside from those four, his career was pretty ordinary.

( Apart from sanitation, running water, roads, law and order, what did the Romans ever do for us ?)


Or you could say, in the era of the Fab Four, he beat all of them and so was arguably the h2h best.

He holds wins over a top ten and two top forty ATGs, and looked spectacular in terms of speed, movement and power in nearly all his fights.


Personally I have him around 20 all-time.

Maybe one or two spots above or below.