DLH ran the last 3 rounds not the last 4. Which is rounds 10-12. No rounds were scored 10-8 in that fight, and yes, some of the first 9 rounds were scored for Trinidad.
One of the biggest screwjobs in boxing IMO is having the official Weigh-in the day before the fight letting fighters gain as much weight as they want before the fight. Look at the difference Kostya Tzu and Alexus Arguello. Kostya looks like a jr. middleweight. There should never be a huge weight advantage between fighters in the divisions below heavyweight. Somthing needed to be done about guys being dehydrated before fights but this is not it.
actually, he was quite a bit faster than Ray IMO, Ray was stronger but nobody could keep up with the Hawk's hand-speed
Pryor was NOT faster than Ray. Leonard had the much faster hands and feet. Ray was known as one of the fastest punching fighters in history and Pryor wasn't for a reason. Sure, Pryor had fast hands, but he was no where near as fast as Leonard at his fastest. I'm surprized at some of you guy's comments.
How did he TKO Hearns if he "runs" the whole fight? What about Benitez? It's called movement. You circle your oponent with footspeed so they can't get set in an offensive stance. Ali used it, so did Leonard.
Leonard was too big, srong, fast and skilled for Pryor at welterweight. Sugar Ray whould've controlled almost the entire fight to win a 15 round decision. It whould've been a great fight but one fighter whould've been clearing winning, and that fighter whould've been Leonard.
"Size does matter, I'm not debating that. But to say that it is a significant basis for prediction is inaccurate. If size mattered that much, Leonard would have lost to Hearns and Hagler according to your "logic". Also look at Duran: He was undersized most of his fights being he is a natural lightweight and he still kicked ass. My point was more geared towards heavyweights in that a fighter like Vitali Klitchsko would be easier to judge in a fight based on his size. He is too big basically for any heavyweight and this gives him an immediate advantage. Fighters at lower weight classes tend to rely more on their skills and not their size. Although Sugar Ray had more boxing skills than Pryor, it is purely speculative as to who had more power. All I know is that Ray refused his challenge for some reason, called his ass out in front of everyone and the look on Ray's face said "I don't want any part of this fucker"."
When I say "size" I mean height and weight together. Hearns had the height and reach advantage and that's why he mounted such a huge lead on the scorecards. However, Leonard had a 2 pound weight advantage, his punches were more solid on that night enabling him to walk Hearns down in the later rounds and get the TKO. Hagler was a natural middleweight (Leonard wasn't) and the harder puncher, so Leonard used the punch and move style. See Ray was very versatile and changed his style often depending on the fighter; and he whould've been ready for Aaron Pryor. His power, size and speed advantages whould've translated into a victory.
Back to what I was saying. In the lower divisions, 2 inches in height/reach and a 5-7 pound weight advantage is huge, as aposed to heavyweight where that amount doesn't matter quite as much. While size matters in every divisions, it matters more in the lower weight classifications. That's why the Tale of the Tape matters so much.
If we're both talking about the same press confrence, Aaron Pryor tried calling Ray out and Ray calmly told him to "step off" and kept the confrence moving. I don't know, to me it just looked like he thought Pryor wasn't on his level.
This would be a fight that nobody could really predict. There's just too many variables you would have to consider. The main variable being would Sugar Ray run or go toe-to-toe. Or will Pryor come at Ray or try to outbox him. You just never know. If I had to make an educated guess considering Sugar Ray's past fights I'd have to say he would run around the ring and try to steal rounds with flurries. It would be on Pryor's shoulders to chase him around and prevent this. If he can keep up that I would give him a late-round TKO or possibly a decision. Pryor called Sugar Ray out in front of everybody and it would have been a big money fight. There must be some reason he didn't want to fight him. Maybe he remembered those sparring sessions and while Sugar Ray might not have been sparring like it was a real fight, who's to say Pryor was being all serious
either.
Why couldn't you predict who whould win this fight? You just just pick one guy or the other, it's not that hard. Actually, if you look at Ray's history at welterweight, Ray went toe-to-toe with the smaller guys he faced like Duran and Benitez, instead of moving and boxing , or "run" as you said (which worked well against slow ploders but whouldn't work against Pryor because he had good speed and was very aggressive a la Frazier vs Ali).
Pryor, having somthing to proove like in the Arguello fight, whould go all out just as he was known for doing. I don't think he would try to outbox Leonard, he whould try and crowd him with endless punches. The fight whould've turned out to be an all out war, with Leonard getting the better because of his size, power and overall speed.
I'm pretty sure that if the money was right Leonard would've fought Aaron Pryor. In my book Leonard was just too strong for him, and Leonard (being the brash and confident guy that he was as a fighter) had to have known and/or was thinking that. Even if the fight was close Leonard whould've found a way to win because IMO he also had the mental edge.
And I never said whoever's the biggest wins. What I was saying was size is one of the main factors you look at when determining who has the better style match-up.
Duran didn't have to KO Leonard, he got the decision. So there whould be no excuse for Pryor. I not bias towards Leonard, I love both fighters; I'm not biased against him either like some of you are. I just know when he's simply better than some one at a particular weight. He's simply better than Pryor at welter and whould win a clear decision after a hard fight. Aaron was a great fighter at 140, I just don't think he whould beat Leonard.
You can't knock someone out while running. So how did Leonard TKO Hearns and Benitez if he "always runs". That whould be impossible because you can't throw an effective punch while running. What he does is he circles his opponent throwing strait punches from the outside using his reach. He couldn't do that against Hearns, which he learned, because Hearns had a 4 inch reach advantage. So he used head movement to get inside Hearns' jab and threw hooks to the head and body, which was effective after about the 7th round or so untill he got the TKO.
Since Hagler had the reach advantage against him, Leonard circled him then let Hagler get close, threw quick combinations (hooks to the head and body), then quickly got out of range and circled again. He traded with Hagler on several occassions if you remember, outlanding him by about 2 to 1 by the end of the fight. He just wouldn't stay still when he fought in that style, which frustrates the fighter he's fighting against as well as people rooting for that fighter; so I understand where all the Leonard hate is coming from.
^I think most of them saw him on Legendary Nights and bought into those hyped up clips of him fighting Arguello and thinks that he could move up and also do the man often called the best fighter of the 80's the same way. I think they're sadly mistaken to think that. If any of them saw actual full fights of his, they whould know that he has flaws that whould be much easier to exploit at 147.
Size is usually the, or one of the main factors when predicting the outcome of a fight. You take away the size factor and it's very hard predicting fights. For example a heavyweight should have no problem with a flyweight. In boxing any advantage in size or weight matters, especially in the lower weight divisions, so your logic is kind of backwards.
I think what made leonard more powerful than Pryor was his sharpness and accuracy. Pryor wasn't really accurate, but he did throw punches from all angles and had power at 140.
Actually Cotto won that fight by TKO. And the 17 pounds helped him because Chop couldn't knock him out because of it. During the fight Emanual Steward said somthing like 'if Corley was 10 pounds heavier he could've knocked him out' (Corley weighed 142 while Cotto weighed 157). I had a strong feeling that the HBO crew felt the same way as it did that night: that they should make fighters do it the way they use to, when boxers were tougher. It cheapens the sport and fighters of today shouldn't be able to get away with it. If they had the weigh-in the day of the fight then we could truely see who belongs in a certain weight class and who doesn't and who is the best, like the old days. Not weight being used as a handicap to give a fighter an advantage in the lower weight classes. Heavy weight should be the only weight class where huge weight advantages are allowed.
When fighters used to rig the scales so they can come in to a fight heavier alot of the time it resulted in a knockout so it pisses me off that guys can legally do this today. If boxers came in even, you whould see more guys willing to go toe to toe and fighters whould have more endurance if they weighed in the day of the fight. So what if some of today's fighters whouldn't be as good, the ones that truly belong in their weight class would be better and generally it whould make for more interesting fights. Just my thoughts.