Who do you rate higher P4P. Willie Pep or Benny Leonard?

[BennyST]

Pre-plane crash Pep's record is too flawless to ignore.

I sometimes wonder whether this gets a bit too much consideration. Although he was said to be told he was never going to fight again, and the will to get back and fight again was great, do people even realise he was only off fighting for six months? That's the difference between most fights nowadays.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions regarding his place crash. It seems as though people think he was off for ages and then didn't fight as much afterward and that he was not as good after it and that he might even have been toward the end of his career anyway.

He was only off six months and then in the month he started again, he fought five times in that first month back. His greatest wins came after his plane crash. He had lost a couple of years before the crash to Angott, and then didn't lose again until about two years after the crash and that was to Saddler.

One other thing is that he didn't actually even win the FW title until after the crash either. He was off for six months, fought five times in the first month back and was beating excellent opposition straight away and many of the same guys he had just beaten previously.

His greatest wins, against Saddler, Paddy De Marco, Ray Famechon, Eddie Compo, Charlie Riley, Corkey Gonzalez, etc etc were all after the crash. Before it, his biggest wins were Chalky Wright, Sal Bartolo, Jackie Graves and Manuel Ortiz.

I'm just not sure it actually played that much a part in things. His record was great before the crash and it was even greater after the crash and his decline was perfectly natural in that he only lost to the great Saddler years after the crash and didn't start declining against other fighters until he was after thirty years old. Just a thought.

[kendom]

I would go with Leonard a genius of boxing strategy he surpasses Pep in that. Also i belive p4p he had the greater power.