Sugar Ray Leonard or Roy Jones Jr....who was better?

[chrisJS]

A clear loss to hagler, a controversial win over an out of shape duran, a come from behind win over hitman via stoppage and benitez win.
I would take Salvador Sanchez TKOs over azumah nelson, danny lopez (x2) and wilfredo gomez as more impressive.

I love Sanchez and don't like Leonard at all but I disagree. If you want to get technical then Nelson was green, Gomez was out of shape (had to lose 4 lbs day of the fight) and Lopez isn't in those guys leagues.

[joseph5620]

Leonard would get my vote.

[Luilun]

Roy Jones was better in my opinion

[joseph5620]

Of course. I've seen many of his matches. I saw Duran beat his ass from pillar to post. I saw Hearns outbox him and drop him twice in their rematch only to get robbed of a decision win. I saw him fight Terry Norris when Norris was coming off a loss and still lose.

Sugar Ray was great and there's no doubt about that but he wasn't better than Roy Jones in his prime.

Norris wasn't coming off a loss going into the Leonard fight. He was one of the top young fighters in boxing at the time and Leonard was an inactive 34 year fighter. If you're going to hold that against him then you can't ignore Jones getting knocked silly by Tarver and Glen Johnson.

Also, the Duran fight was a competitive action fight. Leonard didn't just get his ass kicked all night as you implied.

[joseph5620]

How can people say Leonard was a better fighter than Roy Jones prime for prime? Leonard was defeated in his prime while Roy never was defeated in his prime. Not only that, Leonard was defeated by an older, smaller lightweight in Roberto Duran who already had a loss on his record all while he was a bigger, younger, undefeated welterweight.

Roy has a win over a young Bernard Hopkins and James Toney, two guys who would rival even the best names on Ray Leonard's resume. Roy had a better win streak, moved up more weight classes, and was probably the more explosive fighter of the two.

And if they were to fight head to head prime for prime Roy would have washed Leonard. I don't see how anyone can say Leonard was better. He might have more hall of famers on his resume but that is all I'll give him over Roy.

Duran was only 29 which isn't exactly ancient. He was also well acclimated to 147 pounds and had already easily beaten Carlos Palomino at 147.

The funny thing is Duran struggled a lot to make 135 and a lot of his time in that division was spent fighting over 135 pounds in non title fights.

The notion that he was just a little lightweight when he fought Leonard is a myth.

[satiev1]

Prime. Roy jones jr. No doubt. Leonard has a big L to duran in his prime who came up from lightweight. Jones has none.

[chrisJS]

Duran was only 29 which isn't exactly ancient. He was also well acclimated to 147 pounds and had already easily beaten Carlos Palomino at 147.

The funny thing is Duran struggled a lot to make 135 and a lot of his time in that division was spent fighting over 135 pounds in non title fights.

The notion that he was just a little lightweight when he fought Leonard is a myth.

The idea that he had a loss on his record so he ****** was the craziest thing about that post IMO. Never mind that it was a non title fight that was twice avenged by KO in title fights.

[_original_]

SRL.




I really irks me when people disregard resume when it's by far the most important metric. A few here want to say that Roy "looked" better based on that ******ed notion of the eye test. Well, let's flip their careers around and see if Roy gets past Duran, Benitez, Hearns, and Hagler. And be honest with yourself, can you see anybody troubling Ray Leonard on Roy's resume?

[joseph5620]

The idea that he had a loss on his record so he ****** was the craziest thing about that post IMO. Never mind that it was a non title fight that was twice avenged by KO in title fights.

Agreed. When people say that I know they are just looking at box rec without knowing the details. And it's not like Dejesus was a terrible fighter either.

[chrisJS]

Agreed. When people say that I know they are just looking at box rec without knowing the details. And it's not like Dejesus was a terrible fighter either.

I love Boxrec. It's a great tool but I it's helped create some dumbass lazy fans who use it as the be all end all and opt to use it over proper research and watching actual fights. I used to have the use the International Boxing hall of fame register to check records. I wish they'd make boxrec full membership fees so that if forces these lazy ****s to learn the sport better.