What's your Opinion Of Sugar Ray Leonard?

I dunno. No one was saying Hagler was over the hill before the fight or during his training camp and you know that Hagler would have trained like hell for the Leonard fight because if you have asked him of all the fighters he would least liked to have lost against it would’ve been Leonard. It’s hard to say if Hagler had slipped that much in his fight against Leonard since the Roldan and Mugabi fights because Leonards style was totally different from Roldan and Mugabi. If Leonard had fought the same way as Roldan and Mugabi did, yeah there ain’t much doubt that Hagler would’ve stopped him too an everyone would’ve said Hagler was as good as ever but Leonard had a plan, stuck to it and won the close decision. Yeah It was close but it was no robbery and Leonard in his first fight for 3 years deserves all the credit in the world for that effort even if Hagler had got the decision.

 

Hagler had stopped Hearns and Mugabi in his previous 2 fights not exactly over the hill. Leonard wasn't at his freshest either

 

I'm just going by the commentary in round 6 of the Leonard fight.

Whatever Gil Clancy, Tim Ryan, & Sugar Ray Leonard say, can I be blamed for believing them?

Remember, this is not just my idea. Everybody says this.

 

That's just because you're not aware of it but this is actually common knowledge to most boxing fans

In reality, Hagler was much like Ali before the Spinks fight of 1978, still holding the title but very much on the way out

which really should not come as a surprise since Hagler never fought again and though Leonard' style was different from Roldan, Mugabi, Hamsho, etc., were ALL of Hagler's 60 + opponents sluggers???

Nobody is saying he didnt train for Leonard but training never helps a fighter regain what he had

which is no wonder WHY it was so close

and though I give Leonard all the credit in the world, I have to say he didnt actually deserve the decision; the judges gave it to him

 

I feel the same. I always had it at least two points for Hagler. Ray faded.

 

bottom line; Leonard was a very, very good welterweight and perhaps jr middleweight

Good enough to humble Duran but not nearly good enough for a Terry Norris, a Michael Nunn, or Lord forbid, a Roy Jones Jr.

The difference?

Duran was flatfooted much like Lalonde, Green, Howard, Finch, former great Hagler, while Norris was a fleet footed boxers with tons of raw speed and YOUTH!

Not like those other guys

This is why we must not rush to judgement. Wins over Pryor, Curry, Nunn would have certified his greatness.

 

Yes, and contrary to the popular myth spread by Leonard fans, Ray did NOT sweep the first four rounds

We all want to believe in fairy tales come true, that Ray actually DID win, making this the greatest comeback in boxing history and winner of three titles AND the only fighter with the brains, the talent, and the balls to bring down the once invincible Hagler

\But it all comes down voting with the heart, and not the head!

and since certain biased fans cannot be trusted with being impartial, you just have to trust your own eyes.

Hagler won this fight 116 - 113 and we all just have to live with it.

 

I've taken the time to watch almost every fighter considered "great" from the 40's onwards too today's era . If they are on film, and have a fight filmed in it's entirety. I've seen them in my over 40 yrs now of loving this sport.
Other than Ray Robinson, Ray Leonard from 79'" to 82" was the best I've seen . Basing that on the skills he showed, his ability to adjust on the fly, his guts and determination, ability to fight through adversity, speed, power, killer instinct, fighting inside or long range, aggressive or countering ,and most Important than all of that, who he beat.
If Leonard didn't get the eye injury, and had rematched Duran and Hearns, fought , Pryor, Curry, and Hagler around 83-84 ( A fight I easily could see him winning at that time, styles make fights, Leonard in my opinion beats Hagler prime vs prime, Duran himself certainly believed it and told him so) All those fights were winnable.
Unfortunately the eye injury side tracked him, and for a few years he was partying and drugging , feeling sorry for himself.
Leonard is the 2nd best welterweight in the history of the sport based on who he beat and win he beat them. Some have more wins at the weight, longer title runs, but no one beat the competition he was fortunate enough to have around that weight at that time. Even some of the contenders he faced on his way up were very good fighters, better than some of the "champs" around today.
Think about this, prime vs primes How many welters beat Benitez, Duran , and Hearns head to head?
It's ironic so many on this site point out his negative life style and arrogant behavior as a reason to hate on him.
But those same posters give a man like Carlos Monzon a pass for his behavior, all he did was murder his wife. That fact has always seemed hypocritical to me.
How one gets a pass for behavior, but others don't.
I don't like some of the stunts Leonard did.
But it doesn't blind me to what he was in the ring . One of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport. Period.

 

Ah, but the scenario (death bed) need not be so dark. How about you’re marooned on an a beautiful deserted island, plentiful of natural food and hydration resources and shelter and you also have a state of the art flat screen tv, a Blu Ray player or what have you, a solar electricity generator (please don’t ask how this is all available) and every Nigel Benn fight on hand. Heaven, right?

Then, within a day or two of being stranded, you find someone else on the island - a fellow castaway and the most beautiful, scantily clad woman you have EVER seen who takes an instant shine to you.

Good luck with getting through all those Nigel Benn fights.

I better stop now before I get myself too excited. I momentarily forgot which forum I was on. LOL.

 

I believe that Ray Leonard was a fighter who came around at just the right time, in the sense that if his parents had met earlier or later, the butterfly effect would have prevented Leonard from being conceived.

 

That’s the thing though. The Butterfly Effect.

People aren’t aware of how many times Ray’s career actually misfired.

He simply zoomed himself back to the point in time of each progressive hiccup and went again, over and over, until he got it perfectly right.

He was actually KO’d in the Brawl in Montreal over and over, he improved his performance each time to the performance in the fight we actually saw and know of. It was the best he could do, and he came to understand that the fated nature of Roberto’s victory was simply too strong to overcome. Happy to have cut his losses, Ray took the defeat and moved on.

Ray’s rinse and modify was somewhat similar also to Bill Murray’s methodology in Ground Hog Day.

It took a while but eventually Ray had his ducks all lined up and you also might not want to know many times Marvin actually did crush Ray in “rehearsals” before Leonard ultimately manipulated all events to his utmost advantage.

 

I could see an uninterrupted 82 on Ray taking Pryor and Curry. Nunn would’ve been that bit more difficult but I think Ray could do it.

As to being on the decline, past best, shot, what have you - given the same criteria and objective assessment for same, I can’t see how it can held that Marvin was shot when he fought Ray but Ray himself not similarly shot at the least when he fought Norris.

Particularly when it is qualified that training won’t allow you to regain what you once had. By 87 an older, inactive Ray certainly didn’t have what he once did, and progressively more so as time passed, compounded by further patches of inactivity and natural ageing.

Realistically, I believe Norris wouldn’t have been too much trouble at all for a younger Leonard.

 

Yes they were.
I think every boxing magazine mentioned it. Plenty of newspaper articles mentioned it. Eddie Futch was in the press mentioning it.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if SRL mentioned it too.

 

Yet Hagler was still the 4-1 fave.

 

They were both viewed as past their best, but Leonard went up two weight classes.