Don Lalonde vs. the Greats

I just watched LaLonde vs Leonard, and that was the first of LaLonde Ive seen, Ive heard he could hit, but that was about it. I also know that Atlas was his trainer for a bit...then when he got dumped was gonna murder Donnie.atsch

 

Donnie was weight drained vs Sugar, you should see Lalonde at is peak!

 

The only really good names that I recognized on Lalonde's record were Stewart, Hamsho and Davis. Good fighter, though I think at least one of them was a former middleweight. Lesley Stewart was also a rather chinny fighter. Still, Lalonde had power, but I don't know if he had the skills to compete with Moore, Patterson, and some of the others mentioned earlier.

 

Lalonde was not very good at all.

Apart from the phony five titles thing, I remember this fight between Leonard and Lalonde was partly being sold on the pair of them being "pretty boys", the 80s was kinda gay like that (but then I guess that sort of thing has always been in boxing).
Lalonde's blonde hair and blue eyes and soap opera looks were among the best things the scribes could say about him, and yeah, he had a "bionic hand" or some ****. Oh, and he was bigger than Ray. That's about it.

I think I may have bought in to it being sonething of a "challenge" for Leonard, but in hindsight there were loads of good young middleweights around (Nunn, Kalambay, McCallum, Barkley) that were better challenges.
I'm not sure why Leonard came back for the Lalonde fight, to be honest.

 

I agree,

I think I remember the advertisments for that fight back in 88'. The TV commercials were calling Lalonde " Canada's Golden Boy ", and Leonard was being hyped up as being a similar type of figure on the American side. I think Ray took the fight to prove indirectly that he could in theory beat a lightheavyweight and make big money in the process. Of course needless to say, the fight was not really a lightheavyweight bout, and Lalonde was somewhat weight drained. I agree with your points that he could have fought Nunn, Barkley, McCallum, or for that matter, even an earlier matchup with Duran or Hearns.

 

I'll make it real simple....all the Greats ko LaLonde, and that's why they call them "the Greats".