What's your Opinion Of Sugar Ray Leonard?

I think you might be right there.

 

Ya I distinctly remember at that time all the great 175 pounders fighting on network tv on Saturday afternoons for peanuts compared to what the Fab 4 were getting for their nighttime clashes. Mike was looking for a big payday because he couldn't get it against the Vonzell Johnsons of the world. I reckon that is the reason he moved up to heavy.

 

Leonard fighting Hagler is quite akin to Hagler fighting Spinks or Qawi. Leonard was a natural welterweight so it would hardly be fair to expect him to fight a guy of Spinks size. We might as well talk about Hagler going to heavyweight.

 

Money was absolutely the reason he moved to heavyweight Clint. a while back i posted his last few 175 purses and what he got against Holmes x 2, Cooney, Tangman and Tyson. It was like going from toilet cleaner to CEO in a big company

 

Agreed. 100%. But Leonard still challenged Don LaLonde for the 175 pound title. No way would he have fought prime Spinks or prime Qawi.

 

Jeez, John, I never miss your posts but I missed that one lol. It was ridiculous what those guys were getting for kicking the **** out of each other.

 

At a catchweight so both titles were on the line.

Why would he fight those two? As i say him fighting Hagler was virtually like Hagler fighting Spinks so that was a stretch enough. SRR didn't fight Archie Moore either. Spinks would have romped over Hagler let alone a guy two divisions below Hagler again.

 

At 168

 

He got all of $1.2mil for Qawi, one of the greatest matchups you'd think of and a unification to boot. Ge got $1mil for Holmes then $2mil for the rematch, $1mil for Tangman, $4mil!!!!!!! for Cooney then of course $13.5mil for Tyson.

Big difference.

 

Indeed

 

I know it was the catchweight but he chose to fight Lalonde instead of Williams or Hill, 2 better and more highly rated fighters. He took the easy way out when the division was weak. He chose to fight the weaker guy and get an extra strap rather than fight one of the tougher guys. I know he got an extra strap but it is like Jones fighting Ruiz instead of the better rated guys.

 

But again, Hagler never fought at 175. Technically Leonard did.

 

None of them were murderers row type to be frank. I'd agree Lalonde on paper was the weakest. The other two were bigger men as well and perhaps not likely or able to play the catchweight thing.

 

Technically you had to weigh over 168. Leonards true weight was apparently around 160.

The 168 pound division wasn't around in Haglers day so he actually had about 9 fights that would technically be classed as light heavyweight fights.

 

One of the greatest to ever do it