What was the reaction to Leonard fighting Donny Lalonde?

7 pounds under the limit? He knew Lalonde was weakened and Lalonde to this day mentions it.

The reason Ray weighed in so light for Hearns in the rematch was because he should not have had the 168 pound title, and that proves it. He tried to get Hearns weakened with a 164 pound clause, but Tommy came in 162 1/2.

 

What? (LOL)

Hearns was coming off a third round knockout loss to Barkley. Kinchen was a late sub who'd never won anything. They fought for an organization's belt that never existed until Hearns needed a belt.

Leonard was coming off his World Middleweight Title win and Lalonde was the reigning WBC Light Heavyweight Champion and they fought for the vacant WBC Super Middleweight belt.

How in the flying **** is Hearns' win more legitimate? (LOL)

Seriously. That makes ZERO sense.

Not to mention Leonard knocked out the reigning WBC Light Heavyweight Champion and Hearns BARELY SURVIVED Kinchen.

What had Kinchen ever won again?

I know the Hearns side of the story has taken root. But nobody was trying to cheat Hearns. I always liked Hearns. I rooted for Hearns against Leonard both times. But he had an inferiority complex when it came to Sugar Ray.

And that was on full display when he thought Leonard might win belts in five divisions before he did. Leonard had already beaten Hearns in the ring. And Leonard defeated Hagler (which Hearns couldn't).

Hearns was terrified Leonard was going to take that from him, too.

 

You can't win the Super Middleweight title if you weigh seven pounds over the limit at the weigh in. That's what Lalonde was fighting for.

He'd fought around 170 for most of his fights before he faced Leonard. He weighed 172 for his first defense against Leslie Stewart. He'd fought under the super middleweight limit any number of times. And he'd gone up, what, four whole pounds since the last time he'd done that?

And he made weight for the Leonard fight easily. He was weak because it was a much faster pace than most of his fights.

And he thought Leonard was going to be a "fat welterweight."

 

Hearns had been active the whole decade in multiple divisions and he was jumping up and down in weight too much. That has a lot to do with the Kinchen struggle to me. 1986 June,, fighting Medal at 154. October 1986, Dewitt at middle.. March 1987 Andries at 175, then in October back to 160 and Roldan.. Then Barkley and then Kinchen in November of 1988 at 168..

Tommy was always fighting-he never retired or played games, and when Ray came back he had not fought in a year and a half. He didn't want to fight Nunn or Virgil Hill, he picked Lalonde a second rate champion. Tommy had fought at 175 previously, Ray had not fought above 160 why was he given that chance at a 175 pound titlist. I don't understand how you think Ray deserved to win two fights in one night. I would not think Hearns would deserve to win 2 titles in one night either.

Ray beat Tommy one time in 1981 and that is legit. Tommy also stopped Duran when Ray never could have, maybe in the second fight but it would have taken a lot to do it. Tommy outboxed Benitez as Ray did,, and had a great fight with Hagler. The fact that the fight with Hagler was bigger with Ray was because Hagler got a lot of credit for beating Hearns. But Tommy should have won that fight in 1989 against Ray. He scored two knockdowns. And Ray beat Virgil Hill, a legitimate light heavyweight who was undefeated and had 10 title defenses. That was an underrated win.

I do believe Hearns experience and activity fighting all the decade is why Ray stuggled in that fight. Hearns controlled every aspect of it. Inside and outside. Ray hit sometimes on the break,which is what he liked to do when he got older.

Hearns win is legit because it was at 168 and they both had to be at weight for the title fight at that weight. My point always has been catchweights delegitimize the title.. And I still think that.

I will never think the win Ray had against Lalonde was legit. Catchweights fights to titles to me are incomplete. They are not legit. If other people think they are that is fine.

 

Well then Lalonde was trying to win a title he never would have won against anyone else. Why didn't he fight at 168 immediately prior to that fight if he was so healthy there? He wasn't. He was weakened. It doesn't matter if Lalonde wanted the title, this was about Ray winning two titles in one night. Lalonde himself has said if he were his natural fighting weight of 173 he would have beaten Ray. That is from him.

 

No just looked like him kid called Maurice.we didn't get on.

 

It wasn't a "catchweight." To win the Super Middleweight title, you had to weigh 168 or under. You didn't get to win the Super Middleweight title weighing in at 175.

To win the Super Middleweight title, Lalonde had to make the 168 limit. He wanted to win it, he'd comfortably fought there before on numerous occasions, so he did.

And, again, nobody has to WEIGH between 169 and 175 to win a light heavyweight title. You just have to come in under the weight limit.

And of all the inaugural super middleweight title fights - Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Donny Lalonde (WBC), Murray Sutherland vs. Ernie Singletary (IBF), Chong Pal-Park vs. Jesse Gallardo, and Tommy Hearns vs. James Kinchen (WBO) ...

Leonard-Lalonde was actually the only one featuring two winning champions who won their last fights (Leonard vs Hagler and Lalonde vs. Stewart) ... and not an assortment of losing contenders and former champs.

I'd much prefer to see winning champs move up or down to fight for vacant belts than guys who couldn't win elsewhere.

Or, in the case of Hearns, helping to invent a new boxing org just so he could win a belt.

 

No he looked like him . We had issues

 

Because Canelo is in the current and people don;t give present fighters much credit.

 

To me that is cheating. So you can weigh 135 and win the 175 pound championship?Lalonde wants the lightweight title and every title above that in one nights. So he comes in at 135. What does that prove. Exactly. Guys have to be at the weight where they are at their best at that weight. The titles I remember Lalonde winning even the Canadian belts and NABF were at 175 where he was comfortale. He said himself his fighting weight was 173.

The Leonard vs. Lalonde fight was the fight which was not legit in that list. It cannot be for a title. Neither guy rated and Lalonde fighting low and weakened for both in my mind. The thing about getting advantages went to Ray's head and he took advantage of it.

 

You are overrating Lalonde. Winning champion. He was a good fighter, but not the top in his division. And Ray knew it and took advantage of that and of boxing. Hearns always won his title the fair way and the legitimate way. Ray did not. That is a fact.

 

You seem to want to bash Lalonde in one thread and praise him another. I'm not rating Lalonde at all.

Lalonde beat Eddie Davis for the WBC Light Heavyweight belt and the former WBA champ Leslie Stewart in his first defense.

Do they suck, too, now? C'mon.

And you're overlooking the part that when Hearns couldn't win a super middleweight belt the legitimate way, he and Kronk helped an organization that didn't exist launch so Hearns could fight a late sub for their belt.

Would there even be a WBO if Thomas Hearns wasn't so paranoid about Leonard? (LOL) That org only got off the ground because Kronk propped it up at the beginning.

 

What? Do you want to cite an example of a light heavyweight champ who decided to fight for the lightweight title?

Lalonde was fighting for the 168-pound title, so he had to make the 168-pound limit. There were no "catchweights." He wanted that belt, so he had to make the weight.

I know you desperately want to bash Leonard over this, but you can't come in over weight and win a belt.

You can come in underweight.

 

Please post the WBO Ratings that show where Hearns and Kinchen were rated before their "title" fight.

Hell, post the WBO ratings that show were Hearns and Kinchen were rated after that fight.

Hell, post the WBO ratings any time in the year 1988 or 1989, for that matter.

There were NO WBO ratings. It didn't exist before Tommy Hearns and Kronk needed a belt.

 

Not necessarily. It depends if it was sanctioned as a title fight. There was a case where Zab Judah lost to Baldomir but ended up keeping a couple of his belts because Baldomir didn't pay the sanctioning fees. Sugar Ray Robinson had a bunch of non-title fights on his various Euro tours where he was under the weight limit and his title was clearly not on the line. There have been other cases like Thil-Apostoli, which was designated a non-title bout even though both men were under the limit because the NYSAC didn't recognise the version of the title that Thil held.

Leonard was clearly gaming the system in his hunt for titles by having a fight with belts from two different weight divisions on the line. Who does that? Can you think of any time it happened in a fight that didn't involve Leonard? Since when does the champ have to make the limit of the next weight class down and still have his title on the line? The WBC's super-middleweight title didn't even exist before this fight, so it had as much history and tradition behind it as the WBO belt that Hearns won.

If you don't have a problem with any of that then you can't really complain about Hearns' WBO title lacking legitimacy.