Oscar De La Hoya Better Career Than Sugar Ray Leonard?

This is the point tho - boxers are very rarely 100%, especially the old timers who fought often, without much time to prepare for specific fighters.

 

A win vs someone at 100% is what I am impressed the most. But like you said, very few wins are gonna be against opponents at their absolute best. Like for example Bowe vs Holyfield 1.
Wins can also be meaningful if the opponent is not at 100 %, but he needs to be at least 80 % of his ability. That is why I cannot count Calzaghe's win vs Roy or Lewis's win vs Tyson. Roy and Tyson were washed up in those matches, so the wins are meaningless to me.
On the other hand a win like Mayweather's vs ODLH is not. ODLH may not have been 100 %, but he wasn't washed up either.

 

That's like asking who you'd pick at 154 to beat Fundora. Yes but he's taller with longer reach than Virgil Hill lets not pretend Hearns is the little engine that could here. You can't pick any WW to reliably beat Hearns because of his size but many could beat him or could be favored against him.

I think even among the people who think the Big 4 are the greatest they have Hearns 1st H2H but last P4P. So this line of thought is nothing new. Hearn's size for a 154 allowed him to beat Benitez and his skills for a 175 allowed him to beat prime Virgil Hill.

Hearns is in the 154 GOAT discussion because only a few big wins are needed to get in that discussion. The division has had lots of talent but fighters aren't spending whole careers at 154. His longer resume at 147 doesn't move the needle.

 

Boots and Crawford would annihilate Fundora and they are apart of his own era let alone historically lol. Fundora already lost at 154 to a non elite fighter. Hearns was still an elite welterweight h2h and his achievements above that weight have to be taken into account if we are talking about hearns as a great in general not just at 147, yeah his resume isn't very stacked though

 

Leonard was absolutely better but Oscar fought longer, more consistently and was a terrific warrior ion is own right. He's a basket case now but in the ring he was a hell of a fighter too ..

 

Duran didn't even do that much at 147 and higher beyond beating Leonard.
Hearns had no clue how to survive; he was basically a 147 Wlad from the Purrity fight.
Benitez couldn't even get the best of Bruce Currry (LOL at "undefeated").
Hagler didn't really deserve to lose in the giant ring.

 

and it's not even debatable. i finally read (portions of) this thread.. i shouldn't have.

 

Oscar DelaHoya was a star. He was marketed sharply from the start of his career. He was a very good fighter not an alltime great but he did well considering the pressure and expectations on him.

Ray Leonard had the same expectarions and some say he may have even excdeeded them. He was a dominant force. He was an alltime great.

 

if you want to make it in this game, you got to have versatility and careful matchmaking

 

IMO Oscar was robbed versus Mosley in the rematch and Mayweather. Had he not played it safe in the last few rounds of the Trinidad fight he wins that too. He had very good wins over Whitaker, Camacho, Chavez, Carr, Mayorga, Vargas, Hernandez, Ruelas, Leija, Gatti, Rivera, Paez.

Leonard should have lost the Hearns rematch and I had Hagler winning their fight. LaLonde was weight drained and Duran was pushed too soon into the No Mas rematch when word got back to Leonard that Duran was partying and packed on nearly 40 pounds. I would say Leonard's best wins were Hearns I and Benitez.

Head to head I'm not so sure Leonard wins, it's a 50/50 fight.

 

Anyone scoring this fight for Hagler, especially awarding him 8 rounds, is giving him most of those rounds solely on aggression alone. While it was competitive and Marvin had his moments, he could barely put more than two punches together for the vast majority of the fight. Lacked variety.

Round 9: He had a stationary Leonard on the ropes only to paw at the target and allow that stationary target to become a moving one who gained a second wind. That moment summed up Hagler’s performance.