Is Sugar Ray Leonard divisive amongst boxing fans?

Yeah tough as teak.

 

I don’t have him in my top 10 but wouldnt begrudge someone that does. He was a fantastic fighter.

 

What does this even mean? He "used his reach" and movement (meaning his skills) to beat someone and is discounted for it?

That's like saying you discount Hearns' victories over Cuevas and Duran because he just used his power. C'mon, man.

 

I do not like SRL's boxing style, but since I'm a fan of pressure boxers and brawlers, that's normal.
I feel he didn't deserve the nod vs Hagler, and I don't say this just as a Hagler fan, but I feel in order to take the belt from the champ, you need to beat the champ. Shoe shinning ain't gonna cut it.
And yes, SRL had it easy and Hagler had it way harder.

 

Yes you are

 

There's always been that unwritten rule in boxing where a long established champion has to be battered from the title, such as Zivic taking Armstrong's, or Armstrong taking away Ross's crown.
Leonard didn't batter Hagler, but he may have won.
Hagler was the blue collar, king of the ring.
Looking at the men he fought on his way up, then at the top, he deserves his legacy.

 

I thought I was the only one who thought that made no sense.

 

Hagler wasn't a brawler or pressure fighter the vast majority of hi

Hagler wasn't a brawler or pressure fighter the vast majority of his career.

 

No, it was a really strange post.

 

Hagler fought the proper way, he wanted to do damage with his fists, not just to tap you.

 

The first time I'd heard of Hagler was reading a ring magazine re the successor to Carlos Monzon.
Hagler was described as being a short, southpaw version of Joe Frazier and only had an outside chance of winning the title.
He was also described as a slugger.
What a croc of crap.

 

I don't know what's your take on "proper way" is. But
the majority of Leonard's wins were knockout's . Some were
quite brutal and ruthless. (Dave Green, Andy Price, Kalule,
Lalonde, Razany etc) If Leonard was just "tapping" those
opponents, I'd hate to see what he would've done if he
was committed to hurting them.
I think you mistake Leonard not being able to hurt Hagler to him
not trying to hurt him. Theirs plenty of times during that fight, he
set his feet, and blasted Hagler. He just couldn't do what much
harder punchers like Hearns, Briscoe, Sibson, Roldan, Lee
Mugabi etc couldn't do, that's seriously Hurt Hagler.
But unlike the above group of fighters, Leonard had the
ability to use a different tactic , force Hagler to lead,
counter him, move off that spot.
It's exactly what Duran did, force the counter puncher
to lead.
Great fighters have the ability to change tactics in
the heat of battle.... It's a shame you can't see that.

 

It was in Ring Magazine when I first picked up on Hagler too. I think it was a report on his bout with Bennie Briscoe a few years before he became world champion. When he came over to Britain for the title fight with Minter,a lot of my friends who were what you may describe as big time fight,casual boxing fans were asking me to give them the lowdown on "This bald bloke that Minter's fighting"

 

How could the ring have got it so wrong about Hagler ?
I got asked the same thing about Hagler vs Minter.

 

Yeah you don't expect The Ring to get things like that wrong.