Let's Hear It For Sugar Ray Leonard.

In many of these bogus posts of yours, you make numerous references to the fact that Hagler was past it, and procede to make the necessary allowences. On the otherhand, you make no concessions for the fact that Leonard hadn't fought in 3 years, and only once in 5 years, plus had never before fought at Hagler's weight. Your approaches are so inconsistant, it amazes me that you can possibly expect anyone to take your posts seriously

 

leonard was much sharper than Hagler that's true so all i have to do is give him credit for looking sharp after 3 yrs of inactivity.

 

Sure I will Pea when I get my hands on the right software. I'm not flaking out. I have a legitimate problem that keeps me from uploading and having that damn os vista doesn't help either. I looked into moviemaker first but all it does is record without the compression and I had to return it. then I looked at quicktime pro but didn't meet the system requirements which means I have to keep looking. later on in the evening I'll get back to it.

 

He quit right after his fight with Howard. the fight was too tough for him.

 

Hell of a welterweight, who could have stayed with any of the other greats at 147lbs when he was at his best. Beat some pretty solid competition coming up (by and large, in dominant fashion), and, of course, defeated Duran, Benitez, and Hearns when he was champion.

I personally scored the Hagler fight 6-4-2 in favor of Marvin, but, as Duodenum said, Leonard fought a hell of a fight against a Hagler who was still pretty damned good.

Yes, he was lucky to get the draw against Hearns in the rematch, but, even then, he had Hearns in a bad, bad way in the twelth and final round, and it would have been very interesting to see if he could have finished Tommy off if that fight had gone fifteen rounds.

So, all things considered, that's a pretty damned good career, given the limited amount of fights that he had. We can quibble about p4p placement, and his status among the all-time great welterweights, but, the bottom line is that, when he was at his best, he was a hell of a fighter. Simple as that.

 

Yeah, good honest post, Ray was always faster and sharper here. Unreal speed and sharpness

:good

 

Are there any fights in which SRL won that you do give him credit?

Seems as though you could discredit everything the man did.

 

The guy beat 4 atgs and several very good fighters like Kalule,forget his personality ,he is a top 5 welter no doubt, a great fighter.

 

Leonard earned the Sugar name and a place among the all time greats.

 

He had a nice beginners career, a little less than Sal Sanchez but still not all time great. Let him get up to around 60 fights with 1 loss then we can justify that lofty ranking. A better replacement is Roy Jones.

 

Roy Jones was simply a superior talent in every way. No fake retirements are necessary if you're an all time great.

Pea, what do you suppose were the reasons for his many retirements? The eye excuse is good only for one retirement but the first time you come back into the ring then there's reason for suspicion. He wasn't hurting for money either.

 

atsch Oh dear

 

Ray Leonard was an intelligent and talented boxer. He took a good shot in his prime. He punched with some authority. He won a gold medal, was two-time welterweight champion, middleweight champion, and WBC light heavyweight champion. His trainer was one of the best in the business. Leonard was a shrew businessman.

Having said all that, there are legitimate criticisms that can be made of of Leonard.

It's true that on paper he beat Benitez, Duran twice, Hearns, and Hagler. But it is also a matter of record that Duran outboxed Leonard over 15 rounds, that Leonard regained the title because Duran gave it back, and that Leonard was outboxed by Hearns. Add to these facts the widespread agreement that Hearns really beat Leonard in the rematch and the growing consensus that Leonard didn't really beat Hagler (as Leonard's light dims people are becoming more objective about that fight), and what looks great on paper doesn't look as good in reality.

Some other fights by Leonard are less than impressive. He should have handled LaLonde more easily. Same with Kalule. And he was embarrassed by Norris.

A fair assessment of Leonard's career would conclude that he was a talented welterweight and a superb showman whose legacy is lacking in substantial ways, so substantial that they keep him from ascending the lofty heights of the pound for pound rankings, as well as the very top of the welterweight rankings.

There are many fighters who, on a pound for pound basis, have much more impressive careers. And I can think of several welterweights that deserve to be ranked above him (Robinson, Gavilan, Armstrong, Napoles, Griffith, Whitaker). This includes Roberto Duran, whose clear wins over Palomino and Leonard, won by effective aggression and superior boxing, are more impressive than Leonard's win over Benitez and controversial outings with Duran and Hearns.

Leonard comes in for a lot of criticism because he deserves it. A man can't argue that the criticisms of Leonard are from haters when so many people make the same criticisms of Leonard over and over, even those who appreciate his talent and accomplishments.

 

I have another problem which is why does leonard get high praise for being the underdog then winning though in controversial manner yet Norris as big an underdog gets no credit though he wiped the floor with leonard. Seems like reverse discrimination to me.

 

I used to dislike Gay Ray but I more or less like him now.

I still like to call him Gay Ray though.