What if Ray Leonard's career carried on unimpeded by the detatched retina he suffered? what would his career path have been like, vastly different i'm sure! Earlier fight with Hagler '84 or '85? Rematches with Benitez & Hearns at 154? Many, many possibilitirs.
Ray needed a break. You know on tv today I heard some guy named Skip Bayless say something about Dirk Nowitski which applies to Ray Leonard, and I never heard someone say this about toughness. It was unique, even though it was about a basketball player. He said Dirk was physically tough, but not mentally tough. Same with Ray in a way. He could gut out a fight and fight like hell, but after he seemed to be tentative about fighting on after a tough fight, something Hearns and Hagler didn't do. I think Ray would have taken a break regardless of his retina and do a similar thing. He had a tough 2 years fighting Benitez,Duran and Hearn and Kalule. He would have been burned out had he kept fighting into 1983 and 1984. Hearns fought some of the same guys, but he seemed to mentally handle it better between fights and had a long career with brutal losses and still fought on. That is one thing which was always apparent. Hearns and Hagler and Duran had a mental toughness Ray did not, yet he had a fighting spirit which would take challenges but need little advantages to get him over the mental toughness issues, sort of like Floyd now. although Ray fought them all and Floyd has not.
He would have stabbed himself in the eye or rigged up an auto accident on his drive to avoid certain fistic doom at the hands of Hagler in 82. He had to fight Hagler & there was absolutly no avoiding it!! The public & media demanded it especially when Leonard said it's a possibilty & what with his superdooper global profile, trapped by his own gob & Leonard new that would be the end of the Leonard $$$$$ BRAND:deal The slippage was evident aginst Larry U.S. Bonds & Leonard knew it & so did Dundee, just a matter of time before those wars of attrition bills come due & there's no way he would fight Benitez/Duran or Hearns at 154. Leonard could'nt cut it above 147 & Kevin Howard showed that + Kalule was punching him at will in 81 so all the signs were he'd stay at 147 where sooner rather than later someone unexpected would scalp him & that would have been Colin Jones:yep
He'd have parked Roger Stafford as planned in May 1982.......:bbb MR.BILL:hat Later in '83, I recall Stafford doing all that locker room praying bull**** to go out and get waxed by Curry inside a friggin' round.... GEEZ!
He probably would've have stopped Stafford, beaten McCrory and Curry, moved up to fight in jr Middleweight division, and probably beaten Hagler if he fought him at least in late '86.
Going by certain things happening, Ray would kayo Roger in three rounds, not fight Pryor, and move on up to the Jr. Middleweight Class.He would find himself in the toughest fight of his life if he fought Davey Moore around the time Duran fought him, but he would prevail by a close-cut 15 round decision, make a couple of easy defenses, then fight Hagler, and upset him anyway.
