Honestly, I believe that if Floyd had power of SRL or SRR, that he would be top 5 ATG. None of those greats had defense on Floyd's level and if he had real power, I think his KO % would be crazy high. I just look at all of the ATG fighters that had no real KO power in their punches...virtually none. The thing that adds cloudiness is his level of available competition, in his era.
Well since we are using "ifs" here, If Leonard fought Mayweathers resume, he would have KOd all inside 8 (except maybe DLH and Mosley). :bbb
Leonard is more exciting, but if i'm going to youtube a fight cos i'm bored, i'm more likely to choose a floyd fight. But that is mainly because i prefer the video quality and the broadcasting.
:yep I'm not sure about 5 ATG, just because of the underlined. SRL would have looked amazingly better had he fought Mayweathers resume at the time he fought them. Now if Mayweather had fought SRL resume at the time he did, I'm not too sure. I'm not sure how Mayweather would have taken a punch from a Hagler or Hearns. We saw what happened when Mosley landed.
I think you should separate 'skills' and 'effectiveness'. One does not need to always be pitted against a certain level of fighter for people to see his skill set displayed. What they do get from that great level of opposition is how effective their skill set can be. Since Floyd's era of boxing didn't have greats like Benitez, SRL, Duran, etc, we can only guess how he would fair against those guys. But, any clown can see how ATG Floyd's skill set is and would likely transfer over to fighting this past greats.
I agree, but imagine Floyd had real power and his record was 44-0 with 40 KO and no losses. Imagine he went on to KO a big kid like Canelo. It would be very easy for fans to extrapolate that even the past greats would be in question for a fight against Floyd. SRL made Duran quit just because he was boxing. How much does Floyd frustrate Duran with his superior defense and ability to box as well or better than SRL? Too me, it would be the obvious defensive genius that would allow people to stick Floyd in the top 5 ATG without having the competition they did years back. Maybe no right away, as people hate Floyd for non-boxing reasons. but has time passed by, he would be firmly entrenched at the very top, IMO.
MVC! Your main argument of Leonards and Floyds similarity is that both became "chess players" when they moved up in weight. The difference is that while Floyd has fought above 130-135 half of his career SRL only had about 6-7 fights above 147 and he was totally washed up in at least 3 of them. In the other ones he fought some guy I don´t remember in his first comback and won by tko then Hagler in a fight I don´t blame Leonard for sticking and moving. He knocked out Donnie Lalonde who was a light heavyweight and fought a rematch with Hearns and a rubber match with Duran who where nowhere near as good as once but still all time greats. Saying that I think Floyd and Leonard are both great but not similar at all.
He knocked out a completely weight drained Lalonde..... who fought at 168 in the fight (Dragged down by Leonard). It was more pathetic of a fight than Ward/Dawson, because it was actually for the LHW title. But anyways, Please do not bring up those rematches, Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter whether or not Floyd had more fights north of 130-135 than Leonard north of 147. The fact remains. Floyd was just as devastating as a fighter @ 130 as Leonard @ 147. They moved up, they couldn't carry their power over. Therefore, they took another approach to their fight game. Stick/Jab, stick/move, fight cautiously from the outside. That's what they did. They stopped engaging in high action bouts like they did in their prime weights.
You might be able to convince some youngsters of this, but I'm 37 and saw parts of Leonard's prime. He is head and shoulder's above Mayweather.
Right, troll. So in what aspect was the Leonard/Duran fight more exciting. You know **** all about boxing.
Ok, if we don´t bring up those rematches which I agree with you were pretty horrible Leonard only had 3 good fights above 147 and he won 2 by knockout. Even if Lalonde were drained the fight still took place 20 pounds above Leonards best weight. I'm not saying that Floyd was not as devastating at 130 as Leonard at 147. My argument is that SRL didn´t had enough fights above 147 to judge what kind of style he developed. And at their best weight they were not similar either style-wise IMO!
