Is Sugar Ray Leonard overrated?

SRL for me is anything but uncomfortable in the ring. I thought he was quite a natural.

 

I was speaking about Hagler with the catch weight, not Lalonde, but no it wasn't done purpously, but if that's the only part that you can debate of all that I wrote, well, that's speaks to the greatness of the fighter in
Its self.

 

He was more talented than Oscar. Oscar was more physically imposing at 130/35 than Ray at 47. I'm using Oscar as a comparison because Leonard didn't always seem completely at ease, like Oscar. They sort of had the "okay, I need to win this round so I'll throw a bunch of punches right now" mentality.




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He didn't look comfortable against Duran (I), granted it's Duran. He tried to win by throwing more punches rather than settling down and tactically frustrating Duran.

I wouldn't say he looked comfortable against Hagler either. He relied basically on amateur style shoe-shining and avoiding engagement to narrowly win that.

And then he was favored to beat Norris before that disaster, which most completely discount.

He was managed cleverly. He seemed to step up almost exclusively against big names. McCallum, Nunn, Curry, Kalambay, etc didn't happen. He fought more easily winnable fights like Kalule or Lalonde or fought big name guys (Duran, Benitez, Hagler). And he did wait until Hagler was fading before fighting him. An immediate Hesrns rematch didn't happen either. His mid-career retirement could've been shorter lived.

To his credit he managed to pull out some fights that could've gone the other way. Under different judges, Hagler and Hearns (II) could've had a win. And Hearns on a different day could've won the first fight. Duran also built his status off the first Leonard fight at 147. Without that win, he wouldn't have had claim to be included in the fab 4 so it didn't really hurt Leonard to have lost the first fight.

Leonard had a great career, but was also very fortunate in a lot of ways. If you want to knock him down the rankings, you can simply by giving more weight to the guys who consistently beat top fighters over long periods or totally cleaned out their division.


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Let me go on a tangent comparing him to Roy for a second.

1. Leonard beat a young Hearns. Roy beat a young Hopkins. Leonard gets heaps more credit for a less dominant win against a similar level opponent. Ray timed it much better bc Hearns was a known quantity.

2. Leonard beat "no mas" Duran. Roy dominated a questionably sick Toney. Again, Leonard gets credited with a historical mainstream win while Roy's win is only known in boxing circles. Roy turned in the better performance against the better fighter imo.

3. Leonard controversially beat a fading Hagler. Roy moved to heavyweight and one sidedly beat prime Ruiz. Again, Leonard takes the credit because nobody takes Ruiz seriously.

4. Leonard legitimately registered a nice win over Benitez and an okay win over Kalule. Okay, well that pretty much rounds out Leonard's career while Roy registered a long list of solid wins not quite on Benitez's level.

5. Norris loss, "He was shot." Tarver loss, "he has no chin and would get starched by x fighter." Meanwhile, Roy actually managed to beat a peaking Tarver.

Something similar can be done with Pacquiao, but neither is typically granted a higher ranking than Leonard. Leonard had great marketing and timing.


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If anything he's underrated

 

Just about every fighter is overrated by some and underrated by some. But Leonard for me falls into the category of being more underrated, or at least unfairly attacked, than perhaps any other fighter.

It's said he avoided tough challenges for example. This about a guy who within a time span of less than two years fought Benitez, Duran x 2 and Hearns as well as other WW contenders, while also winning a belt at a higher weight. Probably never been done before or since in boxing history.

Then he moved straight up to MW after a long lay-off to face a dominant champion. Never been done before or since, as I can recall. Golovkin is seen as a badass, but won't move up even to face Ward, never mind Kovalev.

But despite all tis he somehow manages to be critized for "ducking" Pryor, who wasn't even fighting at WW (might as well criticize Hagler for not facing McCallum or Duran for not facing Arguello), and Curry, who rose to the top when Ray was away and was done when he came back.

Yes, there were better challenges out there than LaLonde and an old Duran, but his legacy was already cemented by then and it's not like they were gimme fights. No ranked LHW is a gimme fight for a natural WW past his prime and Duran showed in his previous fight against Barkley that he still was a dangerous opponent.

 

^ re: the layoff. I think (1) the Hagler fight would've been more difficult for him had he taken it earlier and (2) he didn't need to be retired for that long. He could've added depth to his resume during that period. Or he could've squeezed in a Starling, Curry, of Hearns fight before retiring.

I don't see him as underrated. Very few people want to put Jones, Pac, Mayweather, and Hopkins above him. I think they all have a decent case.




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These wins are worlds apart, and then some. Hearns was already world champion and actually had 3 defenses under his belt. He was already considered the hardest hitting 147 ever by many, and it was obvious he was going to be a great fighter if he wasn't already. Cuevas at the time was considered by many to be the top of the Welter tree, and feared.

SRL had even more behind him, a win over Benitez, a split pair of superfights with Duran, a couple of defenses and a title win up a division.

This was a superfight between two champion fighters. By comparison the fight between Roy and Nard was miniscule. Neither had a big win to speak of. One was a probable Tomorrow's Champion, but Hopkins wasn't thought of that highly from memory. Neither had titles, had even fought for one, etc etc etc etc.

Hopkins was a couple of years away from finding his groove where as Jones went forward quite rapidly.

Tony had some good things going on and behind him but he was no Duran, and never was. SRL - Duran is much bigger.

Leonard beats the number 1 P4P fighter in boxing, a shoe in for the 160 top 5 of all time. Jones beats Ruiz. It was a superb achievement simply due to the weight factor but it's Ruiz no matter which way it's cut.

SRL had a list of HUGE wins and everything underneath is icing on the cake. It's a very impressive cake.

I personally don't get carried away with the Tarver fights. Jones had a huge career behind him and was very much a reflex fighter. His last top performance for me was Ruiz from memory, after that he was past it for mine. He aged fast due to his reliance on speed and reflex with lesser fundamentals.

Tarver doesn't impress me and imo the Jones form a few years earlier would have whupped him.

Critics will try to use the Tarver fights as Roy being exposed, i don't. They all get old, and at different career stages.

I would rate Jones very highly personally. He wouldn't be above SRL but he wouldn't be a mile down either, that's for sure.

Just looking at the ESB Top 100 pinned bible and SRL is at 16, RJJ at 29. That would be pretty easy to palate.

 

1.) Of course it wouldn't have been more difficult without almost 5 years of activity. Did you see Haye itching for an immediate rematch with Wlad directly after his comeback (or any world class HW for that matter)? You think he'd do better than the first time? I personally think Wlad would have starched Haye within five rounds had they fought directly after Haye's inactivity.

2.) No, he didn't, but what has that to do with anything? Had he stayed active and hungry he might have comprised an even stronger resume. He might have beaten Hearns again, beaten Sterling and Curry and a prime Hagler. Perhaps. But he didn't stay active and we can only asses on him on the fights he actually did have.

You're a classic case of underrating him. But I do think a case can be made for having Pac or Floyd above him.

Hopkins? Great consistency and longevity, but doesn't have a win even close to being close to Leonard's best.

Jones? Very impressive in how superior he was to his opposition for a long time, but you're a Jones fan and accuse Leonard of cherry picking? Really? Leonard could have faced Curry and Starling if he hadn't retired you say? Well, Jones wasn't retired but still didn't face Eubank, Benn, McClellan, Collins, Nunn, Dariusz or Rochigianni.

I personally think too much is made of this at times, you just can't fight everybody. But if you're going to hold it against Leonard that he didn't fight Curry, Starling, Kalambay, McCallum, Nunn etc - you surely would like Roy to have squeezed in at least some of the names there by the same standard.

 

SRL at 16 works for me, but if he was just rated on his skill set l would probably rate him higher.

 

He beat Benitez, Duran, Hearns and Hagler. Enough said.

 

He's got the goods, but there are also sooooo many great fighters scattered over time. Imagine a lot more good footage from the 40's and 50's. Gavilan - SRR x 2 etc. So many guys have such limited footage.

 

Jones had 6 fights at 168 in 23 months, ( Nov 94 - Oct 96 ) then went to 175 and stayed there for 12 years, with just the one foray into the Heavyweight division. So it is a nonsense to say he should have fought Benn, McClellan, Eubank, and Collins during those 23 months.

Leonard cherry picked his way up and down divisions demanding Catchweights along the way.

 

If you bothered to actually read my post you'd see that I said no such thing. What I said was:

"I personally think too much is made of this [Jones not facing the above mentioned fighters plus Rochigianni and Dariusz] at times, you just can't fight everybody. But if you're going to hold it against Leonard that he didn't fight Curry, Starling, Kalambay, McCallum, Nunn etc - you surely would like Roy to have squeezed in at least some of the names there by the same standard."

But even so, Leonard faced overall better comp than the above mentioned in Benitez, Duran x2, Kalule and Hearns (with a couple of fillers) during 23 months, so obviously it's not impossible.