Who was the greatest fighter out of the fabulous 4?

Yeah I’m not here for arguments. Just friendly convo

 

Hagler

 

Most entertaining-Thomas Hearns

 

Duran

 

Duran
Hagler
Leonard
Hearns

 

Duran. I think only guys like Robinson and Armstrong were at his level.

 

But if he'd had about 50 more fights we probably would have. Duran's loss to Sims was his 3rd fight in five months way above his best weight, aged 35 and 80+ fights into his career. So the equivalent maybe of Leonard doing the same in the early 1990s at light-heavyweight and losing to someone like, say, Anthony Hembrick, 7 weeks after his previous fight.

 

That's a fair point.

I guess the stronger argument for why Ray is greater than Duran, is that Leonard not only defeated Duran - making him quit in the process - but also went 3-0 against guys Duran lost to.

That would require you to change the official results of fights that are regarded as having been close and debatable rather than outright robberies. And even if you do that, it's difficult to then make the argument that Leonard-Hearns II is as historically significant as the first fight in 1980, or that Hagler shouldn't be beating an inactive blown up Welterweight that hadn't fought a professional fight in almost three years.

I will concede though, simply stating Leonard 'whupped' all of the other guys is somewhat reductive.

 

All brilliant. All legends. But at times like this I guess I have to refer to my all time p4p list, which says:
8. Duran
13. Leonard
26. Hagler
29. Hearns

 

Duran.

 

I can see arguments for all four. I just put a lot of weight into head to head records when the combatants are at roughly the same stage of their careers. As to the poster who asked if Ray would be rated as high if he never beat Tommy and Marvin my answer is no.

 

What if we looked at the problem only from the perspective of their mutual fights?

 

The simple way is to give it the the man with victories over the other four.
(I always include Benitez , so in my mind it's the five kings, if were going
to omit Benitez, we should omit Hagler for the same reason. They didn't
fight each other, but did fight the other 3, Benitez did try to get the fight
before his career suddenly nosed dived. It was Hagler for whatever the
reason, didn't except the challenge, probably simply bad timing, not
insinuating at all Hagler was afraid of Benitez.
Though judging by how Hagler did against skilled fighters that could
force him to lead, a prime version of Benitez would've been an extremely
formidable opponent for him. The old adage of "Styles make fights" would
be very significant in a fight between the two with each man at their best.)
But getting off my rant on how Benitez is often overlooked , Leonard had
victories over the other four when they were prime, or in the case of Hagler
who should've been the better more prepared fighter simply because he
was the natural bigger man , and Leonard was partying for almost four years
while Hagler who already lived a Spartan life style , was honing his craft.
Hagler with all facts to consider that were in his favor should've destroyed
Leonard.
But the most accomplished fighters of the group were Roberto Duran
and Thomas Hearns.

 

It’s always a possibility.

 

Duran by far. Can anyone here imagine if Hagler ,Hearns and Leonard had been natural lightweights or welters and moved up to fight a naturally prime Roberto Duran at 160? Destruction