Benny Leonard where does he rate all time ?

Love those convincing arguments ..

 

Who were the black fighters that Benny fought?

 

Its been discussed before in a 1978 issue of world boxing titled the only man who wouldve whipped duran. Until that other leonard came along

 

Hard to tell....on Boxrec there are quite a few of his opponents with no photos. Found only one bona fide African American but I suppose there were a couple more.

Question to ask is did he duck any top black fighters? After all he wasn't champ of any particular organization.

 

And where did he get off calling himself The Ghetto Wizard?!

#appropriation

 

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1917-09-22/ed-1/seq-6/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1917-09-28/ed-1/seq-20/

 

For a long time, I rated him number 2 at lightweight and Duran at 1. Now I'm pretty convinced Benny Leonard was the greatest lightweight ever. He didn't have the numbers that Duran racked up but he was just as dominant and fought the higher level of opposition. He could have reigned for longer at 135 but retired undefeated in his prime.

I also think Leonard was the greatest fighter there had ever been up to the end of the 1920s - there were greater fighters who came after him but none greater before him.

Overall, He's about number 7 on my p4p list with Duran slightly above him at 6 only because of his success at higher weights and Greb one spot below at 8.

For what it's worth, here's my top 8 p4p (the top 3 fighters and the order are pretty much fixed, the position of the other 5 are a little more flexible):
1. Robinson
2. Armstrong
3. Pep
--------------------------
4. Ali
5. Louis
6. Duran
7. B. Leonard
8. Greb