Jose Napoles vs Ray Leonard

But he wasn't. Leonard was the complete article post Duran. He learnt a lot that night. He was absolutely peak by Hearns and when he retired.

 

Prime v peak - I think that was the debate...

 

I was typing this over a decade ago. It's indisputable that Duran gave gave him a hard earned lesson in the fine art of mental warfare. He learned it well. It didn't hurt that some of the brashness was knocked out of him either.

 

Leonard was prime for Benitez for sure. I have no problem with that.

Napoles was at the tail for sure but he was still one helluva fighter. Apart from Monzon he'd only lost one on cuts in the decade leading up to Muniz. Excepting his propensity to cut by that time i'd wager he was a bit better than Leonard at the time they fought Muniz.

 

Napoles dropped Stracey heavily in the first but tired badly. There was talk of weight problems. Napoles still would have had the moves, which can be seen in the early going against Stracey. There was only two fights between the Monzon and Muniz bouts. Admittedly there was talk well before the Monzon bout he was drinking quit a bit.

It's perfectly ok to think Napoles is a better fighter than Leonard. He's one of he greats. It's perfectly ok to go the other way too. We are talking front line ATG's.

 

sugar ray would win by k.o because he has more speed of hands, more stuck besides being stronger naturally naturally sincerely I think that I would not have many problems to defeat him as the people in this forum would like to believe

 

Napoles started to slowly decline from about 1970/71 imo, definitely from about 72. After that he was getting hit by punches that he'd been able to slip or take the impact off when he won the title. His offensive timing and delivery were still there but the drink had kicked in and he was much less dedicated. Which is a testament to how good he was at his peak, the way he was able to keep turning back decent challengers when past his own best. He was quite faded by the time of the Muniz fight imo and hugely so by the Stracey fight. On a side note, the win for Stracey is obviously overrated in Britain but I think that Stracey doesn't get the credit he deserves tbh. He was light years away from Napoles as a talent, even the faded version and got knocked down in the first round away from home in front of loads of hostile Mexicans. A lot of fighters wouldn't have recovered from that, I don't think, even with Napoles being past it, but John showed a lot of grit to just get himself back into the fight and make the old man keep throwing punches. It ain't up with the best wins by a British fighter but Stracey deserves a fair bit of credit. You had fighters like Cervantes and Pedroza able to hold onto their titles for quite a long time when they were in truth ready to be taken and Napoles could have been the same against similar soft challengers, but Stracey didn't allow it.

 

I went with Ray Leonard on the poll, but what an amazing fight

 

Some very good points here but one think about Leonard is that he had the ability, shown at times, to lead and counter his opponent’s counters. He was never unwilling to engage or shy about mixing it up, but he was smart about it (mostly, Duran I excepted — and he put up a helluva fight there and finished strong).

I think he could also get Napoles to take the lead and he’d be at the advantage there as he had the speed and power to win exchanges.

In short, as highly as I regard Napoles, Leonard is the more versatile and adaptable fighter and he’d find an edge and exploit it.

 

Like Mantequilla and don't like Leonard, but despite my dislike of the fighter, Leonard takes this. Mantequilla was great but I rate Leonard very, very highly. I personally have him #2 at 147 all time.

 

This is a great post and sums it up for me. Cheers, SaintPat