Best win at 147, Duran over Leonard or Leonard over Hearns?

Both classics, but Duran's win was better.

He was the clear underdog against Leonard whereas Leonard-Hearns was close to a 50-50.

He was the smaller man having moved up two weight classes in the era of same-day weigh-in.

He won decisively throughout the fight while Tommy was well ahead in most of his fight and Ray needed to come from behind with the KO.

Finally, the Montreal fight was the welterweight 'event' of the era.

 

Duran. he had moved up from lightweight over a period of time, and Hearns got dehydrated in late rounds of Leonard fight.

 

Leonard over Hearns for me, he knocked out the much bigger, akward undefeated Hearns. Hearns had dynamite in both hands and a devistating jab.

Durans win over Leonard was excellent, it was a close decision win on the cards. I felt Duran was further ahead. Even though Duran moved up he was always much bigger come fight night and made the WW limit easily so thats not a factor, he also carried his power through the divisions. Leonard should get more credit for this performance he showed a lot of heart that night. He also immediately avenged his loss.

 

Of course he was dehydrated it was a 13/14 (cant remember when it was stopped) round fight and i dont think Hearns had been past 5 prior to this. Leonard was also dehydrated as are most fighters at the end of a fight.

 

Duran.

Leonard came from behind to KO a fatigued Hearns very late in the fight. Normally, he shouldn't even have won this in a 12 rd fight.
Leonard's win has more to do with endurance than skills.

Hearns got subsequently KO'd many times over.

And i don't rate much Leonard's revanche win over Duran, since we know the circumstances of that fight. Even Hearns was predicting a Duran repeat for that return bout.