Roberto Duran: Buchanan, Ishimatsu, DeJesus x2, Palomino, Leonard, Cuevas, Barkley, Castro Sugar Ray Leonard: Benitez, Duran x2, Kalule, Hearns, Hagler Thomas Hearns: Cuevas, Benitez, Duran, Andries, Hill Marvelous Marvin Hagler: Minter, Antuofermo, Duran, Hearns, Mugabi This is of course, taking into account age of fighters/opponents, weight, primes, etc.
if you take into account age and weight then i gotta say duran. he beat castro when he was 45. he was a 5'7 lightweight that beat 6 ft barkley at 38. went two weight classes up to beat leonard. based only on achievements, i think if you look at the other side, duran may have had more detramental losses that he had to pick himself up from. lawlor, lang, simms, benitez and the other fabulous four members.
I think Duran's the choice here; which, along with his size, is a big reason why he earns a high ranking despite going 1-4 against the rest of the fab four. In the spirit of P4P, Ray Leonard packed the most bang for the buck out of his career in terms of opposition quality packed into a small number of fights.
Leonard has those 4 great wins, but after that it gets thin. I'll take Duran's deeper resume, just edging out Ray's.
I was gonna say Leonard WITHOUT factoring in the weight. And then after I factored in the weight disparities, I picked Duran
I voted Duran, but could Hearns be at least nr. 3, possibly nr. 2? His win over Duran is one of the most dominating over a fellow ATG, and his wins over Cuevas, Benitez and Hill are also very impressive. I also think he beat Leonard in the rematch. There you have five really good (most of them great) victories. Add to that victories from WW to CW and that he (before the age 40) only lost to one guy who wasn't an ATG. I think he has a good case for challenging Leonard's record.
The four big wins belong to Ray Leonard, but you got to remember that them wins are over high profile fighters, i'm not saying that beating Ken Buchanan is better than say Hearns, but it's not badly out of order to think so. A win over Ken Buchanan at 135 pounds is one of the best a man can hope for imo. Then a win over 147 pounds Ray Leonard, what i mean is that it's not simply the old cliche 'Leonard has the better wins but Duran has more of them', it's much closer than that. Duran might have the best win ever in Leonard (considering his previous prime weight class). Then the likes of which have been mentioned above. I'm still not entirely sure, but Duran might be the best bet for the answer to this thread.
Duran would seal it beyond question if he beat a prime Hagler instead of Barkley. Although the Barkley performance has one thing over the Hagler one - father time. Duran for me, just.
Just factoring wins against quality opponents... Leonard has the best resume atsch However, in my book Leonard's wins over Hears are kind of questionable :think So, in my mind Sugar's resume should be a little less good, while Tommy's resume should be a little better.
There's nothing questionable with a TKO like that. Sure, you can always make a point that the ref could have waited a little while longer with stopping it, but saying that Hearns could have survived is really stretching it. I for one didn't even have Leonard that far behind on points. On my card (last time I've watched it) he was just a point or two behind going into the 14:th. The rematch is a victory for Hearns in my book, though.