Ray Leonard: Best Fighter of the 80's?

Leonard was the second man to make Duran lose.
He has a win over Hagler
A win over Hearns.

Duran has the best win of the 80s.

Mike Tyson has some dominations over relatively bums.
Then again, Tyson dominated a lot of them while Leonard doesn't have that much quantity wise.

 

Tyson transcended boxing in the 80s while Leonard had no where near the impact.

And lets not forget how prolific Mike was. He didn't need catchweights and cheap ploys win his fights either.

 

Against ranked opposition he probably rivals Tyson, and at different weights as well: Green, Bond, Finch, Kalule and Lalonde. Add Duran, Hagler and Hearns to that.

 

Tyson got more attention because he was more exciting to watch for the casuals and he was a heavyweight.
"transcending" has nothing to do with being the best or technically a better boxer or beating better men, if that were to be true there would be a Ricardo López statue inside Mexcico-city.

Being popular means nothing.


Also ofcourse Tyson didn't need catchweights when he was bigger than most of his opponents (Up to including Spinks he outweighted more than 60% of his opponents.
(Yes, Tyson didn't have height or reach advantages but his style wouldn't really favour a tall fighter. Ducking under jabs is a bit more difficult being taller, also being higher means your blood has to be pumped higher (Meaning less stamina, which his style really needed) and relatively more bones mass leaving less weight for muscles, shorter arms also give quicker less telegraphed hooks, combined with his great footspeed we had a fighter that didn't have many physical disadvantages up to including the Spinks fight (last fight in his prime))

 

thanks

 

I am not going to defend Leonard, but there was no denying he was huge in the 80s.

In the UK, I remember Leonard/Hagler being shown delayed prime time on weekday evening TV, while Tyson was 'merely' shown on a Sunday morning...

And as for 'cheap ploys'; Tyson was King. He 'jumped the shark' post Spinks, and his popularity became more from the human desire to stare at the car crash, than to watch him in the ring.

 

lol go to a remote village and ask about Tyson and people will know about him

then ask about Leonard and find out how many know who he is

Undisputed heavyweight champion who was the biggest star in boxing history next to Ali vs. Leonard who didn't even fight for the majority of the 80s due to injury.

Shortly after a year he was the biggest name in boxing and by 87 or 88 he was the biggest name in sports, bar none.

 

Yes.

 

Tyson fans are crazy at times :yep

 

In the 1980s Tyson was so dominant and his brilliance shone so brightly he redefined heavyweight boxing, he made people pause to contemplate if he was the greatest ever heavyweight fighter. Doesn't matter if you think that for that period Tyson was or was not the greatest fighting machine ever conceived of - you've had that conversation. The fighter of the 1980s was Mike Tyson. There was a fleeting genius that passed through him. When Pete Sampras dominate tennis he said that the truly great performances didn't come from him - they came from 'the gift' - and when he was in touch with the gift he was tennis and not Pete Sampras. With Tyson, for that period, when his genius was burning intensely, he was compelling, he was bewitching, you couldn't take your eyes off him and you couldn't imagine anyone withstanding him.

As good as as anyone else was in the 1980s, I never felt that way about anyone other than Mike Tyson.

 

And by the way, I'm no Mike Tyson super-fan either. I'm just doing my best to say it how it felt at that time, for me.

 

Julio Cesar Chavez should rank with Sanchez. At least.

 

This

Tyson was operating on a different level in the 80s and hardly even lost a round. There was simply no one there to compete with him and no telling what he was capable of.

Tyson was as skilled if not more skilled than Leonard. Did Leonard have the defense that Mike had? Tyson was never out boxed by anyone in the 80s ... Hearns was able to out box Leonard and so was Duran.

Tyson was the most skilled heavyweight during that time frame and he didn't rely on smoke and mirrors like Leonard.

 

If anything that just points to overration.