How good was Leonard's win over Lalonde?

It's a far less impressive victory that his fights against Benitez, Duran II, Hearns and Hagler.

Lalonde, whilst a nice guy, was a very limited Champion. He had no left hand to speak of and his only hope was to try to batter Ray into submission with rights. Ray wasn't so far gone as to be too easy a target and he still had enough handspeed to make a big mess of Donny's face.

The fact that the WBC put their new 168lb title on the line and enforced Lalonde to come in under that limit with his 175lb title up for grabs as well shows how the WBC expected things to go, as a Lalonde victory would have seen him vacate the brand new WBC 168lb bauble almost immediately.

The guy regarded as the best LHW at the time was Virgil Hill. Leonard wanted no part of him. If you look at Ray's multi-weight/belt contemporary, Hearns, in beating Andries, beat perhaps one of the few 175lb champions less skilled than Lalonde (Andries was very game however) proved as little in that fight as Ray Leonard did in this one, but Tommy's later win against Hill puts the Leonard-Lalonde fight in the shadow IMO.

 

It was a respectable win and certainly an entertaining fight, but not a legacy builder. The Lalonde victory sits nicely alongside some of Leonard's better second tier wins like Ayoub, Green and Finch.

 

i dont really take thisfight seriously and I dont see how anyone else can either. Lalonde was obviously not a genuine title holder. all one had to do was take a quick look to see it.

I wouldve been more impressed had he put up some kind of fight with my main man Norris, a real fighter.

i'm sorry if I offended anyone but I'm just giving my honest opinion

 

It's a joke. I had never seen Lalonde fight before that match, and naturally thought SRL would struggle against a LH banger. After the first round it was clear that Lalonde sucked as a fighter. He had no left hand, balance, or defence. It was also a joke because of the weight limit put on the fight. You got to hand it to Sugar Ray - he knew his bargaining power and he used it to the maximum.

The fighter with the most abilities left that Ray fought on his comeback, was Norris.

 

I don't think we can really rate this win on par with Ray's win over Benitez. Yes, I realize that Leonard was aging and Lalonde was coming from a heavier weight class, but Wilfed Benitez was an all time great and a huge win for anybody. Lalonde was a brief titlist who hardly qualifies as anything great

 

It was a big win because of the way Leonard won, basically knocking the **** out of the bigger man, not simply winning a decision .. however,LaLonde was limited and coming down in weight , a Leonard manipulation, deeply effected the outcome ...

 

Very underrated win.

 

Didn't Lalonde have to make 175 then 168????

If so, he would've been drained as Hell come fight night, and being average anyway, it's no surprise that even an ageing Leonard beat the **** out of him (which he did, there can be no disputing that)

If this is seen as a defining win does the Norris fight do a genuine disservice to Ray's career? Also, does anyone know Leonard's reasoning for going back down to 154 at that age?

 

Yeah, but Duran started as a LW, whereas Ray at Welter. Also, Lalonde may have been weight drained.

I personally think if Lalonde fought Duran under the same conditions that Duran would beat him.

 

he just had to make 168, he claimed at the time that it wasn't a problem. Its a very decent win for Leonard.

 

Thanks for clearing that up.

As I say, what do people make of the Norris loss? Does this hamper Leonard's legacy? And why did he decide to make such a drastic loss in weight at that stage of his career, did he consider Norris an easy fight?

 

I don't think the Norris fight affects Leonards legacy one bit TBH. Leonard was finished by that stage, I think he picked Norris because 154 seemed like a good idea because he wouldn't be the smaller man as he had been for most of fights since his comeback (Duran aside) but he just didn't have enought left.