Sugar Ray Leonard was Better than Sugar Ray Robinson

Hi Joey.
As I said, your post was worthy of a closer examination, and on that ,your observations were not to be direded, you have your thoughts and beliefs, and you stuck to them, your posts are polite and illuminating, what's not to like, chat soon buddy.
stay safe fellow posters.

 

Tbf we may not have seen SRR at his best either plus I doubt technology back then would b able to capture it to really appreciate it. Just gimmie those Gavilan fights in decent footage.

 

for sure. but we have to know the modern game is a different world.

i guess 40 years ago isn't the modern game, it was a time.

robinson beat more people more badly, how tf else should i judge things?

 

He made a claim that "Duran, Hearns" etc were better than any names SRR beat. As i said pointed out Gavilan is rated higher at Welterweight than Hearns is infact Hearns is probably a tad overrated at Welterweight regarding resume. And Armstrong as i pointed out is rated higher in P4P rankings than Duran so what he said is not strictly true.

As for Duran vs Robinson i would say with alot of confidence that SRR wouldn't lose to Duran at Welterweight.

 

I don't think going 129-1-2 including wins over ATGs or borderline ATGs Gavilan, Armstrong, LaMotta, Zivic and Angott, most multiple times, is overrated relative to SRL's 36-3-1 ledger, which could have easily been 35-5 had scorecards gone against him rather than for him in the Hagler fight and Hearns rematch. You're certainly entitled to your opinion though, even if its in the minority in this regard.

 

Exactly it's not like someone like Sean O'Grady who had over 100 fights but over 90 percent of them were against journeyman or no name fighters. There's alot of quality wins in those 100+ fights for SRR so i totally disagree that 100+ wins is "overrated".

I had Hagler fight a draw and Hearns winning by 2 points, if Leonard had just lost one of these fights i wonder how much it would've impacted his standing.

 

OP clearly claimed Duran and Hearns were better than them from an in-ring ability standpoint, and not resume wise. I rank Armstrong above Duran, and Gavilan above Hearns in greatness myself. But Duran and Hearns have very good cases for being better than them H2H, that should be obvious.

And I wouldn't confidently pick any Welterweight to beat the Montreal version of Duran, aside from Hearns for obvious reasons. Robinson is the greatest Welterweight ever bar none, that doesn't mean he was incapable of losing. The styles might actually favor Duran here. Did Robinson ever fight someone who was physically stronger than him, about as skilled as him, just as smart, better defensively, and who even had the speed to keep up with him ? Because that is what Duran would bring to the table. The outcome of this fight depends on what type of a fight Duran would engage Robinson in, and how well he could take his best shots.

 

An OP like this is designed to get responses, and it will. But upon examination I don't think it's as ridiculous a claim as some may think. I think they are at least very comparable in talent and achievement. You can't bring out the timeworn thing of " well, it must be Robinson because he fought more guys, fought every other day, blah blah blah." It was a different era. Different sets of rules. You don't think Robinson would have gamed the system and herded people around to get things in his favor if he could? Of course he would, he was every bit the egomaniac Leonard was. Look at the proposed third fight with Basilio. That fell apart because Robinson was trying to call all the shots, just as Leonard would later.

Not a big reach to claim what the OP states, though his rationale is ill-conceived and full of holes.

 

Well that's debatable Duran didn't have many fights at Welterweight, where as Armstrong made 18 title defences at Welterweight. Both have stand out wins vs Ross, Leonard, i don't think its that clear cut that Duran is better H2H than Armstrong is at his best. I do know that Armstrong is certainly rated above Duran in P4P lists.

As for Gavilan/Hearns well as i said Gavilan is rated higher than Hearns as a Welterweight, and H2H i think he matches up very well vs Hearns he has an iron chin and could take Hearns best shots.

So as i said claiming that "Leonard beat better names than anyone Robinson beat" is simply not true. Also Leonard wasn't fighting Middleweights like LaMotta when he was a Welterweight either.

I don't see how it does ? Robinson is faster, is an excellent boxer, better footwork than Leonard, more power than Leonard, just as fast as Leonard, and Duran's mind games isn't going to force Robinson to fight his kind of fight. Infact style wise i think Robinson has a pretty clear edge in this fight.