Top five of the last forty years ?

no one came close to beating Hector in his prime. all my top fighters-Hagler, Jones, Camacho, were never beat during their primes. They could only lose when they were on their way out.

I have to go. someone's sending me a private message.

 

All those guys were past their primes, but a 34 year old Leonard wasn't against Norris?

 

Duran
Hagler
Leonard
Whitaker
Jones

After that: Ali, Mayweather, Hopkins, Chavez

 

Exactly, hector schooled everyone from 83-90 and the sad thing is that his first loss came cuz he didnt touch his opponent's gloves, how ****in sad is that.

 

age 34 doesn't mean a decline unless you show it in previous fights and i've seen leonard struggle long before going back to montreal. uno mas is one of leonard's crowning achievements. it was the perfect exhibition of how to stick for the length of an entire bout without slowing. it was up there with Norris-leonard.

 

Leonard wasn't defeated between Montreal and the Norris fight, but by no means did his prime suddenly end because Norris defeated him. Leonard wasn't very busy during the late 80's, and he was certainly past it for the Hearns rematch and the Duran rubber-match. Still a damn good fighter with good ring generalship, but I'm sure everyone with a knowledgeable boxing brain could see he wasn't the fighter of the early 80's. Leonard simply grinded out wins and wasn't defeated again until 1991 because he knew how to win, simple. However, I thought he lost the Hearns rematch in my own opinion.

So Leonard had the same reflxes and handspeed during the early 80's as he did during the late 80's?. You said "age 34 doesn't mean a decline unless you show it".

Leonard's superb efforts throughout the late 80's caught up with him against Norris. And as I have said twice already, he hadn't made 154lbs since for 7 years.

 

Look at Bernard Hopkins. people are telling me his loss to Jones was meaningless-that he didn't hit his peak until the fight with Tito. Bernard was 36 at the time. I don't know exactly when it was but it shows proof that Hopkins hadn't slowed and may have been better at age 36 than he was at 28

you have to have something to base it on and the performances tell the story if you're declining.

with leonard it's hard to say. he's had so few fights in the years 1980, 1981 and beyond it's hard to tell what he may or may have not achieved. The best i can do is point at his most previous contest and note that all his reflexes were in top working order. the combinations as effortless as usual, the bolo, the shuffle, the jab-nothing was missing Robbi.

it didn't work with Norris because he didn't fit the profile of the style leonard likes to face-slow, plodding, hittable. only twice in that fight did i notice ray connect with combinations-late in the 11th when Terry relxed (knowing he had the fight in the bag) and early (1st round) when Norris came at him on the ropes, making it easy for Ray to counter.

but when Terry was on the move it was no contest and Ray didn't know what to do. this was the same problem he faced in the Hearns fight in 81. Leonard had major problems getting to tommy and only when he slowed down to a walk in the late rounds was he able to land one of his haymakers aimed at tommy's chin.

I don't believe Ray had enough contests for his efforts to have caught up with him the way it did with Marvin Hagler. Hagler was the one who was always taking on the top fighters and when he started slwoing, he took punishment en route to victory as you can see in the Roldan fights. he took Leonard's toughest foe in Hearns and spit him out in three but it was arduous to say the least and stripped him of most of his remaining skills. he wasn't sharp at all against the beast and Mugabi pretty much finished what was left of him.

getting back to leonard's weight, let's put this in proper perspective-Ray Leonard challenged Norris at that weight, not the other way around. why should I believe Ray can't make the weight??

 

Are you describing his efforts against Hearns in II as superb? Duran III? Those weren't superb performances. I don't think you can call the LaLonde gig suprerb. It was a sloppy fight. The only fight in which he looked good was his losing effort against Marvin Hagler, and this was only because Hagler had slowed down considerably.
I don't know what Leonard did to deserve to be in the top five of the last forty years. Lose to a lightweight? Did Ali lose to a light heavyweight? Did Duran lose to a featherweight? Leonard was in his prime when he lost to Duran. Did Hagler lose to a welterweight in his prime? Did Chavez lose to a featherweight? How about Whitaker?

 

he doesn't deserve to be among the top five, Lethal. He had the beginning of what looked like a pretty good career when he pulled out of the sport knowing he couldn't really cut it and the Hearns fight made him realize his luck was going to run out in the near future.

I really can't understand how someone like Kevin Howard gave him such a tough fight when hewas only 27.

Those people blaming it on the two year layoff are the same ones boasting how he beat Marvin after a three year layoff and three years later!

I had Ray at number 41 over the past 30 years that may have been way off but no way is he close to being number 1. I would even place that panty hose freak DLH higher (who would look better if he had as many gift decisions go his way)

 

I'm describing his efforts against Hagler and Lalonde as superb. Saying "his superb efforts of the late 80's" doesn't mean every single fight he looked brilliant. I do concede he lost the rematch against Hearns. Leonard won handily against Duran in the rubber-match, and it was Duran's performance that should be questioned that night.

Leonard lost to a lightweight?. I'm pretty sure Leonard v Duran I was at welterweight the last time I knew. Duran was a natural lightweight who struggled with the scales late in his lightweight reign. He even had around seven fights at welterweight before facing Leonard. And your not going to tell me Leonard dwarfed Duran the night they shared a ring in Montreal. Duran was a welterweight when he squared off against Leonard.

Leonard wasn't given a prayer against Hagler, slowed down or not. The man had one fight in five years, and was expected to get KTFO. You have problems with the decision, but your man lost fair and square.

 

Your contradicting yourself. As the above is your point in the arguement to counter me saying Leonard had slowed down against Norris. Would you say Hagler had slowed when he fought Leonard?.

No doubt you'll try and talk yourself out of this one with a couple of paragraphs containing nonsense.

 

I'm no massive Leonard fan, but to rate him outside the top 10 is absturd. 41, is a joke beyond belief.

Lets look at some hard facts. Leonard beat Benitez, Hearns, Duran, and Hagler. To rate him at 41 must be a joke. Im sure your not serious.

 

i'm not contradicting myself at all. age by itself is not enough to conclude a fighter is ready to be taken. Bernard Hopkins is the perfect proof of that.

Hagler had so many fights compared with the paltry number leonard had, is it any wonder Hagler was headed for a loss? hagler's opposition wore him down much faster than his age. leonard saw it and decided it was the right time to come out of his phony retirement.

 

I ranked him 41 but found that was being hasty. Outside the top ten is justified however. we're talking about 30 years here and I can find so many fighters who were better than Ray leonard-five of them in the lightheavyweight division alone (Jones, Spinks, Galindez, Saad Muhammud, Braxton).

throw in names of contemporaries like Arguello, Mayweather, Jeff Chandler, Sanchez, Whitaker, Chavez, Norris, and he easily gets pushed out of the top ten.

What's helping ray is his talent which is great when he's facing limited club fighters like Dave Green at a controlled pace but when put in with a hustler like Duran, or Norris, he gets forced out of his rhythm and loses his composure.


In the 80's he could make top ten. his win over Hagler helps him with the recognition part but then the gaps which are questionable bring him down lower and the Norris fight really puts it all in perspective.

 

No offense, Robbi, but those aren't hard facts. You just throwing out names. Yes, Leonard beat Benitez. We will give him that one. But he lost to Duran big time. The rematch was a bust. The rubbermatch was ****. He was getting completely outboxed by Hearns. Leonard lucked out when Hearns ran out of gas. The rematch? Hearns was robbed. He lost to Hagler, even though Hagler was used up by that point. Hagler was robbed. In between, he had trouble with fighters he shouldn't have. Then there's Norris. So when you look at the actual circumstances, the hard facts tell us something quite different from what you want to believe.

There are easily 10 boxers who can be ranked ahead of Leonard when evaluating the past 40 years: Ali, Duran, Hagler, Chavez, Whitaker, Jones, Spinks, Arguello, Monzon, Napoles, Foster - there's eleven right there. Nothing Leonard did justifies placing him ahead of these boxers. Nothing he showed us in the ring justifies placing him ahead of these boxers.