Well, Hearns and Hagler almost beating Leonard doesn't count, he also beat Benitez and Duran @ 147 (as out of shape as he was). Most of Hearns work got started at 154, where he beat both Duran and Benitez both of which were out of their better weight divisions. Leonards comeback from a layoff to beat Hagler at 160 is an extroadinary achievement that can't be overlooked. I agree Duran is greater than them all. Leonard does leave a bad impression with all of the shady deals he made (which i'll be making a thread about shortly..please chime in:good).
I suppose i'd say Duran Leonard Hagler Hearns It's really subjective and you could make arguments for either men being above each other in different aspects of greatness. No bias here, but for me Duran is the greatest, you could argue Leonard as being the best with his brilliant top wins he has, but you could also for Duran with his dominance at the lower weight and that Leonard win being maybe the best single win ever. Then you have Hagler above maybe Leonard if you wanted in a greatness aspect, with his dominance and somewhat underrated resume at 160, good wins there no doubt. Hearns seemed to be consistently great in h2h terms throughout weight classes despite losses. A true elite no doubt is Tommy Hearns but i would personally not rank him above the other three. I did take the word 'best' in the thread title as meaning a sort of 'greatness' btw.
Records are a lot more than just numbers. Hagler didn't almost beat Leonard. He beat him. I saw it with my own eyes. And where was Leonard when Hagler was in his prime? Scared to death of Hagler, that's where. Hearns didn't almost just beat Leonard, he dropped him twice and outpointed him. That was no draw. I saw it with my own eyes. And in the first match, Hearns was way ahead before falling apart. From where I was watching it didn't look to me than Leonard had much to do with that. In fact, Leonard was clueless for most of the fight. In their primes, Duran clearly demonstrated he was the superior talent by beating the crap out of Leonard. That was not a close fight. Yes, Duran quit in the rematch and Leonard regained the title by default, but in the competitive match Duran owned Leonard. Hearns destroyed Cuevas, who was one tough hombre. Leonard never had a dominant performance over a fighter of that caliber at welterweight. Yes, he beat Benitez, but that was a close fight and an unjust stoppage. Duran gave Hagler a run for his money and dropped and outpointed Barkley. Remember, Barkley was the man who twice defeated Hearns. Sure, Duran was out of his weight class. Big deal. He was so freaking good it didn't matter. You can have Leonard and his shady deals. I don't care about all of that. I judge fighters by the challenges they accept and what they do in the ring. Leonard was a remarkable talent. A gold medalist and an excellent professional welterweight. But (listen carefully to me now) relative to his manufactured reputation, he is the most overrated fighter in the history of boxing. People do him no favors by so obviously falsely inflating his status. Enough of us can see what is in front of our eyes. He was the least of the four. Of course, his name is the grandest, but grandest isn't greatest. It's manifestly silly to rank him over the others. You can't put Leonard over Hearns, and not simply because Hearns was better head to head, outboxing Leonard most of the way the first time and dropping Leonard twice and outpointing him in the rematch (surely you don't believe that highway robbery was a draw). Hearns accomplished more. Hearns four biggest wins were Cuevas, Benitez, Duran, and Hill. Leonard beat Benitez, too. But Duran beat Leonard. Leonard beat LaLonde. But how does that stack up against Hill? If you can't put Leonard over Hearns, you sure can't put him over the others.
Best: Duran, Leonard, Hagler, Hearns Explanation: I think Duran and Leonard were equally brilliant but Duran did it for a longer time. I think Hagler was a better overall fighter at Middle than Hearns was at Welter. However, I think Hearns may have been better than all of them when considering how he carried his prowess up several divisions. Favorite: Leonard, Hearns, Hagler, Duran Love watching all of these guys fight. I didn't like Hagler and Duran much when they fought for various personality related issues. I admittedly overlooked some of Ray's faults because I was already a fan. Tommy may be the best human being of the bunch.
:happy Is that because the first two cleaned out their divisons? I am not the biggest supporter of divison jumping unless you have cleaned house first.
Greatness best etc.. 1. Duran 2. Leonard 3. Hagler 4. Hearns faves 1. Hagler 2. Duran 3. Leonard 4. Hearns but i like all of them