Ray Leonard's legacy

Mate, did ya see any of the Wlad fight tonight? I predicted an 11th round TKO for Wlad (exactly what happened), did he happen to be very dominant throughout or was it an unconvincing performance, how did Thompon fare? I thought he might be a tough one to crack but would be ultimately outclassed.

 

Hi everyone,

yes I´m new here and I really enjoy this forum, lot of new stuff to learn. Nice people as well.

Holmes jab, I will definetly be one of Leonards defenders, he´s a personal favourite, however I will not go into any fight´s, I´m not that good in slipping and sliding. I stay on the outside and use my sharp jab.:bbb

Stonehand89, I never knew that Ezzard Charles was MW. I have to spend more time on youtube now. I met Archie Moore once. He was with the US national team here in Sweden and I was 10 -12 years old. I shaked his hand, got his autograph. my father was like a kid in a candystore, I couldn´t understand why. It took some years before I understood why. Today I would have act the same way as my father did that day.
All the best
The Predator

 

Archie Moore's autograph, eh? That must be a prized possesion, I've met Hearns, Benn, McGuigan and Lewis before and got some signed stuff from a few of 'em. It's very valued stuff for sure.

Manassa (from this forum) will be attempting to hunt that Archie one down lol, that's his all-time fave fighter.

 

I don' tconsider late losses too much, what you accomplish in your prime is really your legacy ,imo.Larry Holmes struggling with Neilson and Butterbean doesnt diminish his resume to me .

 

If we play devils advocate with leonards top wins then i suppose we can list the followingnote,these are not my oponions,but what others may say.)

1. benitez: wilfred trained for about nine days for the fight.
2. duran: ray lost to a lightweight,and beat a bloated out of shape version in the rematch and a 'shot' version in the third.
3. hearns: he beat an undeveloped,underweight green hearns narrowly in the first fight and 'lost' in the rematch to a supposedly 'shot' hearns.
4. he beat an old shop worn hagler,and only because of numerous concessions about glove size,ring size etc....

However,the facts are that benitez hardly ever trained for his big fights and yet still won,he was UNbeaten at the time of rays win,and it was not really his stamina which let him down but rays skill and stamina.
Duran was on fire that night and fought arguably the best fight of his illustrious career,yet ray made it competitive. The lightweight tag is misleading as duran won at middle at world title level,and head to head the welter duran gives any atg a very competitive fight. The second fight ray won easily mainly due to durans indiscipline,the third he easily defeated an over the hill duran,but ray was over the hill as well.
The hearns fight is a stupendous win against an unbeaten head to head monster at 147,nobody knew hearns' durability issues at the time,ray showed the blueprint. Hearns showed the greatest stamina of his career in the leonard fight,his speed,power and boxing were also awesome at the time. Ray beat a much better version than hagler beat,the rematch showed both mens decline and boths tremendous heart.
The hagler fight showed me that ray was true class 13 pounds above his natural weight,beating the active (though slowing.) p4p nuber one and undisputed atg 160 man with one fight in five years is UNPARALELLED in the history of boxing. Ray beat hagler with smarts and speed,something which always bothered hagler. Forget the fifteen round myth that hagler would stop ray after 12,hagler has NO stoppages after the twelfth in his entire career,ray has a few,and ray would have paced himself better as would have marvin. In their primes i think ray would have taken an easier fifteen round decision purely by the same tactics.

Finally,if we play devils advocate with robinsons' career we can say he never faced many punchers,ducked burley and the black murderers row and lost to lesser guys than hearns,duran,benitez and hagler. (la motta,turpin,maxim.) Halso beat only one atg at welter (gavilan.) and never beat a hagler,hearns,duran calibre of opponent elswhere. Robinson was also floored numerous times in his career (artie levine for a nine.) and troubled and floored by guys like tommy bell who were not in the class of say a hearns or duran....

 

Hi, Stone. You had a post about past and recent fighters in a thread that I've lost track of, since I've been away for a while. But I would like to answer what I remember about that post here.

1. You said that the competition was greater back in the day since there were more active boxers because of greater poverty etc. While this is true to some extent other factors more than balances it out.

I: The population over all has become larger.

II: For a long time only whites had full access to the elite levels, especially at heavyweight. Mainly black fighters had a hard time getting a shot at the big time.

III: Boxing is more of a world wide sport today. Earlier almost all fighters came from the US or Western Europe. Over the last decades there have been an influx of Latin Americans, East Europeans and even Asians, making the pool that much larger.

All in all I would therefore say that the pool of fighters have become larger over the last 50 years or so, which should sharpen the competition.

2. You put great emphasis on the larger amount of fights past fighters had. While I agree with this to some extent, I think it's not quite that easy. First of all, there's always diminishing returns. A fighter with 100+ fights will not gain as much experience for each new fight as someone just starting out. In fact, it's very reasonable that the wear and tear of so many fights will have a bigger negative effect than the postive effect of the gain in experience. Therefore, it's plausible that a fighter with 100+ amateur fights and around 50 pro fights won't get any better than he already is. A very hectic fight schedule might possibly also have a reverse effect on a fighters training, since he always has to aim to be match fit and might have less to time to develop certain aspects of his game.

3. You said people were tougher back in the day because conditions were tougher. This is certainly true of th US and Western Europe, but in for example Latin America and many other places in the world, conditions are still plenty tough and so are the people living there.

This was the points you made that I remember.

 

It seems that people here attaches more importance to RJJ:s late losses than to SRL:s. I wonder why that are.

I have SRL somewhat higher than RJJ, but not by a great margin. The main difference IMO is that SRL proved himself in wars, which Jones didn't.

 

Also bokaj,leonards two late losses came after long layoffs/retirements and when he was definately past prime. Against norris he at least went the distance.
Against camcho he was very old and hadnt fought in five years,plus he was injured.
Jones was coming of a great win (possibly career best.),over ruiz and a tight one over tarver,he then got starched twice,especially by johnson. He then proceeded to lose tamely to tarver again.
Finally,you are correct in that ray proved himself against atg opposition,and in very tough fights.
It seemed to many that as soon as roy got in tough fights or got hit cleanly he was vulnerable....

 

You can deal with me directly.

I'm not disputing the win over Wilfred. I just wasn't impressed by him as I was with Norris. A win over Terry Norris would have amounted to something.

Wilfred was just too passive a fighter and between two slick speedsters, the faster man always prevails as in Leonard-Benitez or Norris-Leonard.

Moreover, you out something important. You said Wilfred always won previous to the leonard fight. This is not true. He lost those fights to Weston and Bruce Curry. He was just given those decisions but what this shows is that Wilfred was beatable even at this young age.

A good fighter, not a great one but definitely a competitor.

Now for Duran. Duran only had 6 fights at 147. This makes him great? He'd spent his whole career at 135 or below, was active 13 years, jumped two weight classes and still won. Many of the rounds were close but Leonard was still bigger and faster, not to mention younger so he should have won fight one.

The rematch Duran lost only because he was forced to take off dozens of pounds in record time. In cases like this, it means the outcome is indecisive. And i wouldn't make too much out of fight three. Nobody can say Leonard was the better man if Duran is fight 4 weight classes high compared with leonard's two and bigger to begin with.

As for Leonard being over the hill, what proof do you have if Ryan is telling him he 'put on an absolutely masterful performance'? He was on his legs for 12rounds. What difference was there in this performance and earlier performances? none.

And you comments on Hearns I couldn't dissagree more. Saying Tommy was at his best for the leonard fight is like saying Joe Louis was at his best for the Schmeling fight. The fact is a seperate thread was started on this months ago and most everyone including John Thomas that Tommy did not reach his peak until three years later in the Duran fight (Just before the Hagler fight). Thomas had: more experience, more rounds, and physically he was better in every way. I hate to say it but Tommy from the leonard fight wasn't half the fighter he was for the Hagler fight. A shame Leonard had to stay retired so long.

Skillwise though, it was Tommy who showed the skill in fight one with Leonard, who showed he always had problems with fighters with speed and skill. The extra two pounds and Tommy would have won (as Gil Clancy said)

The Hagler fight: I feel just the opposite and that Ray was made to order for hagler because of his inability to take sharp blows.

Hagler was shot. I watched Marvin in training 3 weeks prior to leonard and was very saddened to see what had become of this once great fighter. As Ray said: "Marvin lost a lot of speed and I am counting on the slowness of hagler to see me thru this fight"

Well, his planning paid off and he did get thru the fight. Many of the rounds were close but hagler shaded it. In Marvin's prime which Leonard somehow missed I believe Marvin would have discombobulated Ray early as Norris had done and gotten him out of there early. 15 rounds not necessary.

I just can't see why Ray took those years off only to continue years later with those same opponents.

 

Long layoffs? I can understand the loss to Camacho who was also shot but you call 14 months a long layoff? He had a 3 year layoff and still won and you're complaining about 14 months. That's why he was blown out?

PS: He wasn't past his prime in the Norris fight. He was heavily favored and still Norris overcame leonard. It was a stupendous upset because Leonard had all the expereience.

 

Roy didnt need to get into wars the way Leonard did because he fought better.

 

Ive talked with you before rooster,i take on board your points but i know that you are not objective at all in discussing leonard. The points you raised i have already adressed somewhat and i will expand on them with other posters....Sorry,but talking to you about leonard or hagler is like discoursing with a drunk on new years eve......

 

That sounds like a copout to me.

BTW, I Love the way you fabricate but don't you ever get embarrassed?

Answer me this: Why did leonard fail to make one defense at 160 and avoid matches with Nunn/Jackson/McCallum while taking fights with Lalonde and pudgy, unathletic Duran?

Should be easy enough to answer.

 

Fair enough. I see that you are objective enough to be credible and will keep that it mind when next we go toe-to-toe.

Although I think that the mitigating factors on Leonard's glory are stronger than the one's on Robinson -no matter how you slice it. Robinson was so near-perfect that posters are reduced to nitpicking (like his going down against Levine... or that he lost to Lamotta... meanwhile the fact that he was fighting practically every other week is glossed over and the fact that he was outweighed by 16 pounds by Jake and avenged it 5 times including 2-3 weeks later is forgotten).

Look up what Ray Leonard said about Sugar Ray Robinson sometime. Then check out what Ali said about who "The Greatest" really was.

 

Hagler was heavily favoured to beat Leonard, yet pulled it off against all the odds. Hagler had all the momentum going into his fight as well. If Leonard wasn't past his prime against Norris, then Hagler sure wasn't for the Leonard fight.

Leonard hadn't made 154lbs for 7 years. Thats something that falls on deaf ears with you. He struggled to make the weight. The older you get the harder it is to take weight off.

Your the only person on ESB who comes to the conclusion Leonard at 34 years old down at a weight he last visited in 1984 wasn't past his prime. Your biased and live in a fantasy world.