Why did Sugar Ray Leonard fight Terry Norris?

He definitely thought he could beat Norris which is the only reason why he took the fight. Also had he beat Camacho like many thought would happen even after being out of the ring for a while, he was going to be positioned to fight De La Hoya next. Imagine that.

 

A pay day and the claim to winning another belt. He still thought he had something left in 1991.

 

I have to chuckle at the ‘typical Ray, he took the fight because he thought he would win’ stuff.

This is a guy who took on prime Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran and immediately rematched Duran after he had already lost to the guy. Not to mention Benitez and other challenging fights before he was even a champion (he was fighting contenders by like his 14th fight).

What great fighters ever think they’re going to lose? Did Hagler take the Leonard fight becaues he thought he was going to lose it? Did Roberto Duran think he was going to lose the rematch to Ray or lose to Iran Barkley or Davey Moore? Did Tyson think he was going to lose to Holyfield? Of course they think they’re going to win — that self-belief is pretty important to becoming a great.

 

A 3rd Hearns fight had appeal most knew Hearns really won that Leonard rematch and it would have been PPV again but Leonard here is probably thinking I'll cherry pick and wait till Tommy looks terrible again before getting back into the ring again with him.
There was also Julian Jackson who was at the peak of his career that possibly could have been PPV.

Also what was Leonard doing back at 154 lbs against Norris? Leonards previous 3 fights had been at or above the middleweight limit of 160 lbs against Hagler, Lalonde, and Hearns.
When Leonard came back for Norris, at middleweight were Michael Nunn and Mike McCallum. Wonder why Leonard did'nt stay at Middleweight and think about fighting those two. LOL!

 

I think that in the realm of top level fighters it was a cherry pick gone wrong. Norris was a world champion who had some cache because he had recently taken the belt from John Mugabi. I just don't think Ray realized how far past prime he truly was

 

I'm not saying they're all cherry picks, but certainly Leonard saw an opportunity to face Hagler after the Mugabi fight. Leonard said himself he thought Hagler had slowed down after watching the Mugabi fight at ringside. So I don't think that's an unfair comment, it's still a very good win nevertheless.

As for Hearns I don't agree Leonard took the rematch vs Hearns, because he thought it would "bring the best out of him". Let's be real he chose Hearns after seeing him get KO'ed by Barkley and struggle immensely vs Kinchen. The general feeling was Hearns was past it after those fights. So Leonard thought he'd have a good chance of beating Hearns he thought wrong, and Hearns proved he had more left in the tank than what we all thought including Leonard.

And finally as for Lalonde that wasn't even officially at Light Heavyweight, wasn't it some BS catchweight at Super Middleweight ? I mean that's no different than what fighters like Canelo, Mayweather, get discredited for.

Here's also a quote from Leonard himself.

Leonard: I was sitting there with Michael, and I'm watching Hagler get outboxed by a guy who is known as a slugger, John "The Beast" Mugabi. I said, "Michael, I can beat Hagler." He said, "Yeah, Ray, yeah." Everyone thought I was being a smart-ass. But I really saw a sign [in that fight]. I mean, I always felt I could outbox Hagler. If Mugabi can do that, I can do an even better job. That had the most bearing on my decision to go ahead with a Hagler fight. I felt he was at a point that he didn't have that same fire in his body or in his heart. He wasn't the same guy.

I do think in Leonard's comeback he was an opportunist, there's nothing in that and he's still an ATG but that's how i feel.

 

Everything you said is true, Leonard even talks about it the same way, about spotting a fighters diminished skills and then making a fight to fight them.
Leonard talks about outsmarting everyone and demanding he fight Duran immediately after losing in Montreal, his thinking was that Duran was notorious for partying and blowing up between fights that his best chance to beat him would be an immediate rematch after Duran had made the most he's every had fighting him and using that money to party and blow up.
I'm not sure Leonard realizes that he is diminishing his accomplishments by boasting that he would call for certain fights when the opponents he was eyeing were at their most vulnerable, in fact Leonard relishes recounting these stories as out smarting everyone winning the psychological battle before he got into the ring.

 

No doubt Leonard saw Hagler and thought he could take him. My question is didn’t Hagler also think he could take Leonard?

Leonard might have thought he had a chance against Hagler but he had also only fought one time in five years. He didn’t have some internal gauge that no person has that would tell him what level he would be inside the ring with Hagler that night when he proposed the fight … if he did, he wouldn’t have taken the Norris fight because his crystal ball would tell him he wouldn’t be up to it, right? Nor did he know that Hagler wouldn’t be better than he was against Mugabi … look at Holyfield vs. Czyz before fighting Tyson and tell me you think he’d have been that guy against Iron Mike.

He didn’t sit around and wait for Hearns to look bad. He took that fight off the Hagler fight … he was back in the ring and Hearns was the most lucrative fight he could take.

Hear Ray’s own words: “From the time the fight was announced, most writers were saying Hearns was shot, that he shouldn’t fight, that he might get hurt. Throughout training camp, people kept telling me the same thing. I kept telling them that Tommy would rise to the occasion because he was fighting me.”

He also said talked openly when he made the Hagler fight about needing challenges, that he wasn’t motivated without a big fight in front of him.

So if we’re going to use Leonard’s words about the ‘Hagler has declined’ and take what he says as gospel, let’s not pick and choose which quotes we want to decide are genuine and dismiss things he said that don’t fit the narrative.

 

No, he didn't. In his autobiography he says he didn't necessarily agree with the view that Mugabi showed that Hagler had slowed down. He thought he had seen something, that's all. Something that Duran also had mentioned after fighting him three years earlier: "You box him, you win".

 

For the entirety of Duran’s career it was ‘get him back in the ring as soon as possible’ because he partied between fights.

Then he beats Leonard and all of a sudden it’s, ‘give him more time, it’s too soon.’

Again, we have people cherry-picking what Ray Leonard said because it fits a narrative.

Ray Leonard also has said, many times, and been confirmed by Mike Trainer, his attorney who lined up his fights (the chose promoters rather than have Ray sign with one): He went from the first Duran fight to Hawaii. He was thinking of retiring. Less than 2 weeks after the first fight he was running on the beach and decided he felt good and still had the desire. He called Mike Trainer from Hawaii and said ‘I want Duran again. Get him as soon as possible.’

So, again, if we’re going to take Ray’s word as gospel why ignore this part? He wanted the fight again almost immediately.

Leonard had made up his mind to rematch Duran within 2 weeks. Did Duran gain 100 pounds in 2 weeks, lol?

 

I’m trying to track down the quote where Leonard said he saw Hagler slowing down. Your quote doesn’t say that — it says a guy who is retired, smaller, been out of the ring for basically five years (is he getting faster lol?) watched the fight and said, ‘I can beat Hagler.’ OK, good.

I’ve found a quote from Bob Arum who says Leonard saw a slowed-down version of Hagler but he doesn’t attribute that to anything Leonard said.

Did Hagler not think he could beat Leonard? If he did, it’s a fight between two people who both think they can win, so why is that an indictment of Leonard but not of Hagler?

 

For what it's worth, the fight with Leonard was already decided before Hearns faced Kinchen (required he won, though, I think). The say that in the commentary for the Kinchen fight.

 

First coming straight out of a long retirement to go up two weight classes to fight a dominant MW champion and top p4p fighter. Then continue that with facing three younger (and in two cases bigger) title holders, one of them a long standing rival. If that's cherry picking I sure as hell want some more of it today.

The SMW/LHW thing with LaLonde was silly, otherwise they are all great fights for a past prime fighter that still had a bit left (less so for each fight, though).

 

It was terrible opponent selection .. he clearly underrated the explosive Norris ... I actually saw Ray sparring a few days before the fight in a gym in Times Square and it proved interesting ... on one hand he and his trainers looked very happy when he decked a sparring partner ... on the other another young sparring partner was there and he kept saying Ray wouldn't spar w him again after he showed Ray up the day before ...

 

It would of been an event that's for sure. The 76 gold medalist vs the 92 gold medalist. Sugar vs Golden Boy. If he had looked good against Camacho it would of only been a couple years after Foreman-Moorer so you know they would play it up as well. Could this be the Welterweight Foreman?

In the end Oscar would have annihilated him at that point, maybe a KO1.

God forbid Leonard continues on after that and faces someone that would punish him before KOing him like 90s Ike Quartey or Jose Luis Lopez.