Bigger achievement - Ali/Foreman or Leonard/Hagler

Hagler at middleweight is a better scalp than Foreman at heavyweight: Marvin is 2 or 3 on the best middleweights list, whereas Foreman is maybe 6-9 on the heavyweights. Hagler was a dominant reigning undisputed champion for several years, and was clearly the best fighter before that (heavily avoided). Foreman only won 3 title fights during his prime, and failed to establish an enduring championship career.

The only thing in favour of the Ali win by comparison is that Foreman was a lot younger. But Leonard was coming off a multi-year layoff. I think that's about equal in importance.

So, even if Leonard was a middleweight, his victory would be greater. The deciding factor that makes this easy is that Leonard was a natural welterweight taking on an ATG middleweight. Overall I think the Leonard win is clearly better for these reasons.

 

You mean the fight where Hagler won every round, wasn't even hurt once, and battered his opponent into submission?

 

Are you saying Leonard, a blown-up welterweight, should have tried to trade toe to toe with Hagler and go for win by KO? This is the guy with arguably the greatest P4P chin of all time, who responded to Thomas Hearns' best punches by actually increasing the ferocity of his attack, and you think Leonard had to win by stoppage to get credit?

It wasn't "just enough to win" - it was the *only* way to win. When you go up that much in weight and are facing an ATG with a great chin, you have to use your advantages - speed, mobility, smaller target etc. You don't try to beat the bigger guy at his own game.

 

Ok I just read through every reply. Here's how to decide which was the better boxing achievement (as opposed to the generator of more hype, or the biggest upset in the mind's of the general public, which is what some posters mistakenly seem to be considering here).

If Ali and Foreman fought 10 times in the same condition as in their fight, what would be the total score? And if Hagler fought Leonard 10 times in the same condition, what would be the score? Answer honestly. IMO Ali would win 8 or 9 times out of 10. Whereas Hagler Leonard would probably be between 6-4 and 4-6.

Whichever duo would have the closer results, the winner had the better achievement - because quality of achievement is determined by quality of opposition; not by hype, headlines, or the misperceptions of joe sixpack who watches 1 fight a decade.

 

Yeah the fight where he got outboxed by a slugger at times. You can't possibly look at that fight and think Hagler was not declining. Ko or not Hag was slipping.

 

First of all i don't feel that leonard beat hagler. I think that 'marvelous marvin" landed the cleaner and more effective punches and that leonards flashy flurries are what impressed the judges even though many of them didn't land cleanly.

This is dispite the fact that if anyones style would be suited for hagler it would be leonard. Styles make fights and combined with the fact that hagler was past his prime (and older than leonard as well, physically as well as fight wise because of the wars he'd been in against mugabi, roldan, and hearns).

Leonard was still relatively young and hadn't boxed for three 3 years. This and my belief that ray waited for hagler to get older to come back and challenge hagler takes much glitter off of his accomplishment.

Ali's case was different. He beat a fighter who destroyed the 2 fighters that gave him his toughest battles (frazier and norton). Foreman was considered to be invincible at the time ( unlike Hagler) and was also in his prime (also unlike Hagler). Ali was aging and foreman was expected to destroy him and yet with these factors against him ali found still found a way to upset foreman, just as he did 10 years earlier.

Ali's win imo was much more impressive considering the wear and tear he had on him and the type of fighter he faced who was not just a brutal puncher but also had an overlooked ability to cut off the ring.

 

Excellent post.Well said.:good

 

In complete agreement here - not even close - I gave it to Hagler by 1 round anyway (not counting him giving Leonard the first 4 as a gift aswell:huh - god knows what Hagler was doing) - but had he fought as he should've in the first 4 the win would have been clearer still

Whereas Ali's victory over Foreman was just mindbogglingly amazing - one of my favourite ever fights too - nothing short of pure sheer genius.

 

I'm sorry, I meant to say that he upset foreman like he upset liston 10 years earlier.