Imo Leonard is one of the greats and that applies to any era. He might pick up a loss here and there fighting so often (bad night) and being black in 1917 but overall he sets himself a level above everyone. Would be great to see how he does with the rough in fighting that he would certainly have to have an answer for. I think that's his biggest challenge.
Sugar only fought 40 times and lost 4. That said, he would tear it up, but because he is so injury prone he would not last long. His high mentally draining style cannot handle the pressure of constant fighting. I would say he end would up with about the same record over a very short career. Like others have stated, he would retire and do something else.
Exactly! I think there's this misconception, that boxers from 100 or so years ago were these ultra-tough super-humans, who engaged in hard, draining 15 or 20-round battles every other week (or sometimes only days apart) year in and year out - until some of them had 200+ fights under their belt. But how many of these fights were real... and how many were more like exhibitions (though billed as real fights), where there was no attempt to hurt each other? With boxers fighting for peanuts (compared to today) it makes sense (at least to me), that there must have been some sort of understanding to go easy on each other - so everybody could live to fight another day, thus being able to put food on the table via a, sometimes, very busy schedule. Not saying all fights were like this, but I would guess, that a good many were.
I don't think you know anything about that era at all. You are great at wisecracking though. . Just dead wrong with what you just said.
With his speed, power, and fighting style, most of his opponents would feel like they were fighting Keanu Reeves in the Matrix.
Have you never studied the old-timers' records - and wondered, why so many fights ended with both boxers being thrown out, because their fights were obvious shams? Never wondered why many boxers met the same opponents so many times, that they were likely just going through the motions, without trying to flatten each other? Never wondered why many of the top boxers had ridiculously low ko percentages back then?
This is the case in Muay Thai in Thailand, especially at the higher levels where the teams can communicate and negotiate with each other better.
Both Britton and Lewis sometimes weighed in below 140 for their title fights. So it would not be fair to match them with today's welters - who, as you point out, probably are around 160 at fight time. With today's day before weigh-ins, they would likely fight at lightweight.
Leonard dominates more than likely but he is going to be expected to box a lot more and he probably wont hold up physically if hes fighting 30-50 times a year. He could barely hold up for 40 fights over his whole career. What would be interesting as well would be how quickly fighters of 1917 start picking up Leonard's techniques and trying to adapt them and how the sport would evolve from this time travel experiment.
Everybody in the Roaring 20s would be saying "quite naturally" & the first radio announcers would always say in the 1st rd, "I wouldn't be surprised if someone goes down" in the first rd.
No way. That’s a huge insult to Hagler. Hagler was a very sore loser after their fight but I doubt he would stoop so low as to mock Leonard for being sexually molested by a trusted adult when he was a teenaged boy. Surely you think more highly of Hagler than that?