what do you think of Sugar Ray Leonard?

[Boxclever]

Just a fantastic fighter, one of my all time fave's

[hellfire508]

LEGEND. What a fighter. He is third on my P4P list, behind only SRR and Henry Armstrong.

[anwaryussuf81]

Sugar Ray Leanard was a great fighter. He beat Hagler, Hearns and Duran. Those are 3 of the best fighters at his time and all 3 guys that he beat were champions.

[abright1]

..........

[abright1]

"________" Ray Leonard

Anyone else here who just CANNOT bring themselves to pin a badge that just ain't deserved...despite all the "super hero"-like bedtime stories, this guy NEVER convincingly dominated ANY weightclass for ANY extended period(in the same way that, say, Duran/Pedrosa/Hagler/Pryor/Arguello/Sanchez/Whitaker/Toney/Jones/Hopkins to name just a few held extended (ie. many defences over many years) "reigns of terror" over their divisions.

Truth is, his boxing career WAS ended by Hearns in a pyrrhic (google that word...it's perfect here) "victory" over Hearns...What remains is a series of well-orchestrated, very lucrative, media-stunt show-matches (eg. after he--with the help of "beauty contest watching" judges WAS GIVEN...again, can't say the word...the decision over Hagler...he defended not even once--why should he, he pulled his stunt...pretend retire again... and start fishing for the next big money "event".

I bless whatever lord determines what becomes legend that it has never become popular for people to refer to him as the last unified middleweight before Hopkins--technically he took Hagler's titles--but as he had no intention of ever defending them and did nothing with them...(I'm afraid to even mention this...all the RL fanboys will start referring to him as a great middleweight-division-unifying champ...with ZERO defences...)

RL was a great boxing talent/all-time great showman...but he never dominated a division as a full-time boxer. He was also super-smart...smart enought that after Hearns '82 his career really was over...but he proceeded to make amazing amounts of money and build up an amazing amount of mystique with surprisingly little risk, largely thru weilding his marketing muscle to manipulate the configuration of fights (eg. the big-money bonus to force a 200#-plus celebrating-like-Maradonna Duran to lose 50 pounds in just weeks..."no mas"="no gas", the super large "running track" which he used to AVOID fighting Hagler). Each successful stunt was, of course followed by a faking-retirement period/fishing-for-next-big-payday phase. And like suckers to a carnival, the public kept eating up all this.

But serious fans don't buy it for a minute. They know this greatest-of-all-time-manager-of-his-own-"career" belongs not in the same ring with the likes of Armstrong or the two I mention below. (Outside the ring's a completely different story...poor old Henry died washing dishes...but IN-THE-RING, don't tarnish the memory of the many who did legitimately dominate their divisions for years on a full-time basis, by letting this poser leap-frog them unfairly in our memory.)

[hellfire508]

Are you a real boxing fan? With a post like that I really doubt it. Regardless of your liking for the man, EVERY true fan admits how great SRL was. Definately top 5 p4p ever IMHO.

[abright1]

I'm with you 100%...if you're talking about Benny, or Robinson (before my time)...or Pedrosa, or lw-Duran, or Hagler, or Arguello, or Pryor, or Sanchez, or Holmes, or Tyson, or Whitaker, or Toney, or Jones, or Hopkins...serious sustained careers with sustained multi-defence reigns...look at RL's record (and pay attention to the time between his cherry-picked stunts...only exception was the quik Duran rematch--cause it suited the media-darling on this occasion)...after Hearns '82 hamburger-ized his face and detached his retina--he dropped in, only as he pleased, and always on his terms, for special lucrative "events"--he sustained no career to speak of...IN THE RING...

I give him top of the charts OUTSIDE the ring...but his best stint was as a welter, ending with a career-ending victory.

To set the record straight...it is a shame for both Leonard and Hearns that these two talents came along at the same time. Under normal circumstances, either would be division-dominating monsters. What happened was like Hagler and Hopkins comin' along at the same time...But be that as it may, Leonard never even dominated his natural weight class--he won the fight/a title but lost his career doing it...he never had the chance to run up a division-dominating career, so he resorted to becoming a media-darling cash-cow urban-legend by pulling a number of well-remembered cherry-picked stunt fights (capturing a few titles...most/all of which he never defended...cause he went into "retire and fish-for-next-big payday legend-building stunt fight")

Look at his fight by fight record after '82...how few times he fought...how he never/seldom he defended any titles he accumulated

Anybody talking about post-suspension-Ali and Leonard like they're goddam comic-book heroes is either under 40 or learned everything they know about them from reading articles in People magazine or articles by today's experts who are either under 40 or learned...

[TheEvilSaint]

hes overrated. heres why:
every fighter he fought gave him a good fight or a mean thrashing, meaning he couldnt win decisively.
he retired 5 times.
he was a coke-head.
he was an alcoholic.
he was ridiculously inactive his whole career.
he wouldnt give marvin hagler a rematch.
he sold out to as many companies as he could.
he had two types of fighting: piddy paddy and run or piddy paddy really fast and hope the ref stops it.
he cheated his camp members out of their money by not sending out any christmas bonuses.
and after terry norris handed him his ass, he just HAD to try another comeback against hector camacho and got TKOd at the age of 40.

after all that, how can u consider ray leonard a great fighter?

[uncle_rico]

hes overrated. heres why:
every fighter he fought gave him a good fight or a mean thrashing, meaning he couldnt win decisively.
he retired 5 times.
he was a coke-head.
he was an alcoholic.
he was ridiculously inactive his whole career.
he wouldnt give marvin hagler a rematch.
he sold out to as many companies as he could.
he had two types of fighting: piddy paddy and run or piddy paddy really fast and hope the ref stops it.
he cheated his camp members out of their money by not sending out any christmas bonuses.
and after terry norris handed him his ass, he just HAD to try another comeback against hector camacho and got TKOd at the age of 40.

after all that, how can u consider ray leonard a great fighter?

you pointed out alot of things that show, as a person,
he's a complete jerk off. but as a fighter?
c'mon man, he was sick.
i mean, he shoulda lost to hagler.
regardless of points, you can't take hagler's titles the way leonard did,
that was a disgrace.
I believe if he lost to hagler people would say, wow,
this guy came out of nowhere and went 12 rounds with hagler.
i think a loss to hagler would have actually helped leonard in
the eyes of the fans.
so, i think he'd have less haters if he at least lost to hagler
and he def shoulda lost to hearns, that draw was bull****.

so, he's definitely a little *****, a total prick as a person (definitely not a guy i'd have a beer and watch a game with) but still he was an all time great.

[TheEvilSaint]

hes overrated. heres why:
every fighter he fought gave him a good fight or a mean thrashing, meaning he couldnt win decisively.
he retired 5 times.
he was a coke-head.
he was an alcoholic.
he was ridiculously inactive his whole career.
he wouldnt give marvin hagler a rematch.
he sold out to as many companies as he could.
he had two types of fighting: piddy paddy and run or piddy paddy really fast and hope the ref stops it.
he cheated his camp members out of their money by not sending out any christmas bonuses.
and after terry norris handed him his ass, he just HAD to try another comeback against hector camacho and got TKOd at the age of 40.

after all that, how can u consider ray leonard a great fighter?

AND he moved up in weight to blatantly avoid fighting aaron pryor.