Rallying to beat Hearns, followed by Hagler (win or lose, I'm always blown away by the heart he displayed), followed by Benitez. Benitez just looks like a fish out of water to me in the SRL and Hearns fights, tremendous technical skill of course, just not enough physicality to really challenge them.
i don't want to get into the whole 'who weighed what for a longer period of time' and to what extent that's relevant. or start talking about walk-around weights, body structure etc. the picture is complicated, is all i'll say. i think the loss to benitez is bad, though. and duran should not be rated top five, especially if people are using the moore and barkley wins to justify that. yeah, hearns has some good wins. personally, i wouldn't rank hearns above duran... i'm not going to go into it, but i'm sure you've got a feel as to why. yeah, duran is no top-fiver. i reckon if he'd beaten hagler by a clear round or two, you could start to think about making a case. but still probably not. a win against benitez would have done something for him too. alas i think he'll have to be consigned to the top fifteen.
The best one IMO is vs Benitez. He out-boxes the master-boxer by getting off first with his jab and countering off of it at times. Really superb performance. Second would be Hearns as he struggles early but continually adapts till he gets him out. Third, although I felt he lost it, Hagler. He just fought a superb and unexpectedly superb fight.
Hearns I. We saw everything that made Leonard a truly all-time great. In boxing's biggest fight, he came from behind TWICE, displaying not just his dazzling boxing skills, but patience, endurance, tactical breadth and flexibility, slugging power and a good, old-fashioned jungle instinct. Tommy that night was an all-time great welterweight, with awesome skills, in awesome shape and extraordinarily confident. But he lost to a better man.
Yeah, but Leonard was behind in that fight. Sure he fought in spurts & hurt Hearns badly. but on the overall Hearns was outboxing Leonard & winning the fight.
Precisely! Like Marciano losing to Walcott. Like Louis losing to Conn. Even Alexis Argüello suddenly halting a surging Rubén Olivares. It's one mark of a great fighter. In this case, Leonard beat down an awesome man in Tommy, who was ready to reign for a thousand years. I was rooting for Tommy that night, but almost became a Leonard fan after the stoppage!