Let's Hear It For Sugar Ray Leonard.

I used to not know what to think about the Camacho fight, but I now believe it counts against his legacy.

Ray was in his early forties, but, then again, Robinson, Foreman, Duran, Moore and lots of other boxers have been competitive well into the forties. Camacho was a lightweight for the longest time, but here he was at middleweight belting out a widely regard all-time great inside of five rounds. I thought Leonard would do better against Hector and was amazed at how easily Camacho dissected his man. Camacho is not a great puncher either, especially at that weight, but when he caught Leonard cleanly he wobbled him. Given my expectations, and Leonard's reputation, it was a shocking defeat. But then so was the Norris fight.

It makes you wonder what would have happened if Leonard had fought like other great boxers--you know, all the time, instead of sporadically, mostly waiting for big name opponents to get long in the tooth. It didn't seem that he had a long career in him. I think he would have been at the Norris stage a lot sooner had he fought regularly. He took too many hard shots to produce a long career.

 

Hearns didn't show that much of a soft chin at welter (or 154). Also, Leonard took Tommy's shots better than vice-versa and that was against oe of the biggest welterweight hitters of all-time.

 

The stoppage was very controversial at the time. How old are you?

 

So does Hagler's puny effort in 1987 count against his legacy?

 

I was eight at the time but so what? I've seen the film just like most on here. Oh, let me guess...you were there. Right? Sitting next to Pepping It in Row Z. :good

 

I wasn't there (I wish I had been!). I asked the question because you don't seem to have any knowledge about the reaction to the stoppage. It was controversial. The reason why Ray wouldn't give Tommy a rematch is because Hearns refused to agree with Ray that it was a legitimate stoppage. It was one of Leonard's famous ******* moments. But you were 8, so I understand why you wouldn't remember that.

I didn't mean any offense by asking your age. I just wanted to understand why you would say the thing you said. Now it makes sense.

 

Who found the stoppage controversial? Not many. Hearns maybe? Big deal, he's bound to say that. Steward felt the stoppage was fair and Don Dunphy retracted his original statement and thought the stoppage was correct also. Most of the newspapers and mags agreed with the stoppage too.


ps. By the way, if you have as much material from 1981 as me you must have a shitload. :good

 

No, for two reasons.

Hagler, unlike Leonard, came up through the ranks the hard way. He fought regularly against outstanding opposition. He came through fights against numerous really heavy handed and tough fighters. Hagler was in decline from years of fighting--14 years in fact. His decline was noticable before the Leonard fight.

Hagler beat Leonard. Despite Hagler being in decline, he still had enough left to defeat a talented and big welterweight who had had plenty of time to grow into a middleweight. Leonard had been taking little punishment during those years he was waiting for Hagler to grow old, whereas Hagler had been doing what great champions do--fighting the best fighters in his division.

In many people's eyes, Hagler retired without having lost a fight in over a decade, having defended his title 13 times. His legacy is secure.

 

Mike Katz: Hearns won rounds, usually the duller ones and usually by close margins. Leonard simply beat up his opponent.


This sums up the fight for me. It wasn't as great as people make out in reality.




Did you know that more of the ringside reporters had Leonard in front? I didn't have him ahead personally, but there you go.

 

So's Leonard's. Picking a fault because he wasn't as good as Foreman as a forty three year old. How sad.

 

Leonard's legacy is problematic for several reasons, not just because he was blown away by a 36 year old former lightweight title claimant.

After his return to the ring after his surgery his career was inconsistent at best:
- poor showing against journeyman Kevin Howard, who knocked him down
- controversial split victory over Hagler (terrible decision)
- beat up a inferior light heavyweight, who knocked him down
- knocked down twice in a draw with Hearns (terrible decision)
- fought a incredibly boring rubbermatch against Duran
- knocked down twice and otherwise dissected by Terry Norris
- knocked out by Hector Camacho inside of five rounds

That's adds up to 7 knockdowns in 7 fights, two unambiguous losses (one a crushing knockout defeat), a controversial draw, a controversial split decision win, and lackluster win, and a controversial stoppage victory.

How does one turn that mess into greatness? You can't, unless you ignore or dress up the record. That's my point. Leonard is overrated and his fanboys get infuriated when people simply point it out.

If we go back to before he retired because of the eye injury, we don't find as much to get excited about as the fanboys seemed to imply:
- best win over Benitez
- overwhelmed byy Duran, the lightweight champion
- regained the title because Duran quit
- outboxed and beat up by Hearns before benefitting from the actions of an incompetent referee

Again, a mixed picture.

The bottomline is that the record is not consistent with the praises. Leonard was a great boxer. Nobody denies that. We people deny is that he is as great a boxer as the fanboys say he is. He's not the best of the so-called fab four, that's for damn sure.

 

Very good post Lethal. You bring thought and intelligence to this forum. How i wish that others would follow in your footsteps.

Yes of course it counts against his legacy. We all saw what transpired and shouldn't pretend it never happened. Remember that part of the blame lies with his fans boasting how Leonard was going to beat him. But they underestimated him thinking "this is the guy who goes into a shell when faced with class punchers.., he's a runner, Ray Leonard will give him a boxing lesson and knock out this clown, finishing what Chavez couldn't do".

But Hector sure gave it to the legend that night and lived up to his nickname, the Macho Man. When it's Macho time, you'd better watch out!!

People I talked to afterwards who don't know about my fanaticism, were absolutely shocked over the way Hector came out and what he did to leonard. And these are old people that have been around.

It all comes down to this: they overrated leonard, as they still do today and underrated Hector as they do today, but is now getting a second look for his work at 130.

I think these people had to be in shock at the outcome and especially at the way Hector forced the fight so effectively, punching holes in his hapless foe's anatomy, surprising the world with glimpses of his lost greatness.

With just the little zip he had left and the confidence you'd expect from a Macho Man, this fighting mad tiger had leonard back pedalling and tripping over his feet. This fight was so horrendous for Leonard, it was enough for people like Young Griffo to cover up their faces.

Hector also rediscovered the art of dirty fighting from his early days on national tv, something I had sorely missed and thought I'd never see again.

I love how he came out for the fifth, immediately slamming two hard lefts to the face of Leonard. It was the hardest he'd been hit ever.

It was really turning out to be a bad night for Ray. Just in the previous round he had a spell of bad luck with Hector catching his eye with a butt and opening a laceration above the eye.

But it wouldn't have mattered anyways because Hector was wearing him down fast and sapping his strength moment by moment. The holding behind the neck and hitting tactic was very effective, something Leonard did not know how to cope with.

It's like I said, Leonard has had a very limited career and just hasn't had enough fights to say he's had those trials by fire. But Hector was one fight he'll never forget as well as the audience who had come to watch Leonard give that clown a lesson in pain and shut his mouth for all time.

Still I was quite satisfied with the out come and we all have to admit that Hector was the hero and leonard was nothing more than the big zero I said he was.

I forgot to mention I also won quite a bit of money much to someone's regret.

 

Beat up? He ended up with a mouse, Hearns was Mr Jelly Legs. I know who I'd rather be. Why are you avoiding this 'controversy' that you mentioned. The only controversy was the scorecards. Ask Manny Steward. :good


ps. You remind me of someone. Maybe you're kinda like the 'Zeppo' of the bunch, while the other three...

 

Not to change the direction of the thread, but I've just finished watching Leonard-Hagler once more, and for the first time I actually have this fight a lot closer then normal (although I was trying to be generous to Hagler, based on this whole "Robbery" conception around here).

Still came out with a 115-114 (6 rounds to 5 with 1 even) win for Leonard. The even round was slightly favoured to Leonard for me also (so no draw)...

One misconception about this fight is that Hagler takes over midway. Yeah, Hagler certainly picks up the pace and does a lot better than what he was doing in the first four rounds (where he lost them all), but he was still very slow to get off at times and his punches were still not that effective. A lot of these so called Hagler rounds in the middle of the fight are very close. You give one to Leonard, or one a draw, and the fight is Leonards imo... And while many claim that Leonards flurries were just to win over the crowd, some of them were clean, and in a round where Hagler stalks and lands nothing, 2 or 3 flashy combos actually DO count.

But this fight also showed that Hagler in his prime would have beaten Leonard in his prime at middleweight. HOWEVER, I also believe this fight proves that p4p Leonard was better. If Leoanrd and Hagler were BOTH natural middleweights, I'd tip Leonard by decision.