Is Sugar Ray Leonard overrated?

Hearns was winning the fight and got caught.

Had they fought 5 times, I would say Hearn's would win 3 of them.

So, how can I be biased when Hearns was beating a prime Leonard in the first fight, and in the second clearly won?

You are not thinking

Prime for Prime

Hearns beats Leonard more often than not.
Duran DID beat Leonard at his prime
Hagler would have Koed him.

I do not see why this is so difficult for people to follow.

Leonard has only the Names of those fighters on his win ledger, Had he fought them when they were at their best, he would not. The Difference between the other 3, is that they fought each other closer to their best.

Leonard would not, and did not do that. Leonard, despite having great fighters to face all throughout his career, refused to face them without handicapping them.

 

Speculation.

First Leonard was the superior technical fighter.

Secondly Leonard only lost once in seven bout against these Hagler, Hearns, Benitez and Duran. He was never koed. His lone loss was via majority decision in a close bout.

 

Leonard lost 1 of those wins, by his own admission, Hearns won no 2, Hagler is debatable, but I think Hagler won.

Duran was disqualified in the second fight, Leonard did not beat him he quit. For the Third Duran, he was so old it was horrible.

Leonards record with me when fighting these greats. 3-3 with one no contest( Duran quit). Duran was also ancient in their 3rd fight. the Only Primes is Benitez and Hearn's.

Hagler by contrast is 3-0 ( If you consider the Leonard fight a win for Hagler)

Perry, tell me who would win Prime for Prime.

Hearns Vs Leonard
Duran vs Leonard
Hagler Vs Leonard

 

You cannot change an official decision. Who won is who won....that's it! I never cared for SRL and rooted for Hagler to knock him out. In the end Leonard won the fight and by trying to twist the numbers you reveal your bias.

 

Leonard at his very best beats all three he was the superior technical fighter. I am no STL fan by the way.

 

How was Hearns handicapped in the first fight? What hi-jinx did Leonard pull there, or against Benitez? Do tell.

To answer your question, you're proving yourself to be incredibly biased, to be quite frank. In spite of the fact that Leonard DID catch and defeat a prime Hearns when they fought in '81, you say you feel that Hearns would still have won three of five fights if the two had been paired that many times. Seems kind of random, ands there's no way in the world to verify any such thing one way or another, but you then chide the other poster for not seeing your "vision" of how this imaginary would very obviously have gone in your little world.

Who the hell knows how it would have gone should all these other fights have gone down? We DO have knowledge about what actually did happen, and Leonard stopped a previously-unbeaten Benitez and Hearns at their very best. That actually happened. Sorry, but it did. You switch and move around the facts to paint the picture almost as if these fights never occurred, and the only thing we have to go on is fantasy matchups.

If anyone has trouble following your little bouncing ball of circular logic, it's because it exists in the mind of an addled, biased person who has to create this weird sort of parallel set of mythical circumstances that don't really matter or have any relevance in the real world.

 

Not really a bias.

I am just a fan whom looks deeper than the records. Holmes has a Win over Ali.

Does that mean he was better than Ali?

Besides, we are discussing the merits of Leonards ATG ranking, and that is something that is debatable still.

 

I have no Problem accepting this.


Leonard DID beat Hearn's and Benitiz at their best. BUT, he still ranks lower than the rest of the fab 4.

Of course I am biased, or I at least favor my view. That's why its called a debate.

To me SRL is an ATG, No question. I do think that Hearn's was overall better than him. Same goes for Hagler and Duran.

 

Dominating one's weight class is fine and good but really doesn't compare to moving up and fighting in higher weight classes, imo.

I think that Hagler's quality of opp. actually gets *overrated* because nobody wants to detract from Hagler's greatness. Even though plenty of great fighters had so-so opposition (Louis and Hopkins also come to mind).

 

I look at each fighters technical abilities and here Leonard shines. Add to this his reflexes of both hand and feet. In his prime a tough talent to beat.

 

You don't believe what?

A prime Hagler is two weight classes higher than a prime Leonard. But I don't think the loss had much to do with Hagler being past his prime--he lost to Leonard because his pride made him fight a dumb fight early on.

 

But the way a lot of folks pretend that Duran dominated Leonard in that fight is even more ridiculous. He gets way too much credit for roughing Leonard up but he really didn't land all that many sharp punches in a bunch of rounds. I had Leonard eking out a close win in that fight.

 

That's cool. This I have no problem with. I may disagree, and have biases of my own of course, but debate is debate. That's why we're here, I suppose..........

 

I feel like the only way to score the fight was in favor of Duran. They both knew who won the fight.

1. Duran hurt Leonard multiple times. Leonard never hurt Duran.

2. Duran was the aggressor.

3. Leonard wasn't an effective counter puncher. He was being pushed back and the punches and combos he landed didn't have much effect on Duran.

 

I watched that bout from Montreal live from the ICE world in totowa NJ closed circuit broadcast. Duran won with his aggressive swarming style. Don't even try to take the win away from him. An all time great performance. It would have been one of the worst robberies of all time if Leonard was given that decision. However Leonard fighting his fight.... He wins.