Manny Pacquiao Or Benny Leonard? Who's Greater?

[SteveJarvey]

The *****s and envious pricks will swarm PAC fantasy fight threads saying how pac is inferior with whoever he's being compared with. Some extremely jealous ****s will even say "PAC shouldnt even be mentioned in the same way as ______" .

Leonard died a nobody. Just an ordinary dude refereeing a fight, Im sorry

Pac's decade's best

[Khalid X]

He failed to pick up wins in two of nine fights against IBHoF recognised fighters. Both under adverse circumstances.

Pacquiao's wins over Barrera and Morales are awesome wins but I wouldn't rate those two higher than the likes of Kilbane, Dundee, Welsh, Britton or Ritchie, nor would I consider the version of Morales that Pacquiao beat as close to his best as the boxers I named were when Leonard beat them.

So that's five scalps that are more impressive (to me) than Pacquiao's best scalp already..

Well that's cool and I can respect that. However even though I detest this guy, I feel Marco Antonio Barrera is higher on the ATG list than any of those guys you menetion and I even rate Morales above those guys also. I will get flamed for this but I honestly feel Morales was not shot during the second Pac fight. I say this because I love Morales (huge fan) and I have been following him even before he beat Zaragosa.

Of the crop of IBHoF recognised fighters Leonard beat, this is how many times he beat them (according to boxrec):

Kansas I
Dundee IIII
Ritchie I
Welsh II
Kansas III
Tendler II
Kilbane I
Britton II

That's 16 wins over great fighters in or around their primes..

I agree that is very impressive and pretty crazy when you think about it.

Again, all good wins. But how many of those would you consider all-time greats? And the ones that you do, would you place them above the guys Leonard beat? It's also possible that Pacquiao loses to his greatest adversary (Mayweather), or just doesn't fight him altogether - which would be a bigger dent on his record than the Leonard loss to McLarnin or the draw with Ted Kid Lewis. And while we're talking about deductions from legacies, how about Pacquiao losing to the best version of Morales he fought? That's significant I think considering a lot of people would call Pacquiao win over Morales his greatest up until this point..

ATG's....well I'm pretty hard on people and I only consider Morales and Barrera as ATG's he beat. Those guys you mentioned on Leonards list, to be honest, I don't consider any of the ATG's. HOF maybe but not ATG's....unless someone can explain to me why they are among the top 50 greatest fighters let along top 100 fighters of alltime.

No kidding - it's exceptional. But we're comparing him to a bonafide top 10 pound-for-pound all time great here. In my view the greatest lightweight that ever lived..

I agree. From what I have heard leonard is a beast and it's no shame if your resume pails in comparison to him.

That's all well and good, but I think the "who, where, when" is important when considering these things, so you have to take into account the differences between the two eras..

I try to, but when pac beat these guys:
Sasakul was the best at 112
Ledwaba was the best at 122
Barrera was the best at 126
Marquez was the best at 130
Hatton was the best at 140
Cotto was top 3 WW

So it's not like he backdoored his way to these titles. He beat the #1 guy and thats pretty much all you can ask from him. Also outside of Marquez, he didn't just beat these guys but can in as the challenger and completely dominated the #1 guy in that division (not to d1ckride)

Okay, nothing's impossible, so let me adjust my statement a bit to "it's highly improbable that Pacquiao can surpass Benny Leonard".

EDIT: and I know I have a Mayweather signature but trust me I'm not knocking on Pacquiao here; rather bigging up Leonard and paying him the respect I feel he deserves.

I agree that it may be highly improbable...I was just playing devil's advocate. As far as the May sig....naah I ain't tripping on that and thinking your being biased. I have no issue with May fans as long as they are talking intelligent and not trolling and flaming. People knock Pac fans but Alot of Floyd fans are just as bad if not worse when it comes to flaming/trolling but I digress and that is another topic for another day. You seem like a cool intelligent poster and I like choppin it up with posters like yourself.

Jesus Christ how is Pac even mentioned with Benny?

You do know people were saying that about Ali being mentioned in the same breath with Louis. This is boxing and sometimes we have a bad habit of thinking these legends are insurpassable or it's blasphemy to compare modern era fighter to them.

[Frighteous]

Leonard's career is way better than Pac's will ever be. Unless that Filipino reporter who thinks 'current fighters are tougher than fighters back then' writes the article...


my favorite old fighter is slapsie maxie though...i appreciate fouls when done proper it's why hopkins is one of my favorites.

[S.G.]

(Warning: long, boring post below)

Well that's cool and I can respect that. However even though I detest this guy, I feel Marco Antonio Barrera is higher on the ATG list than any of those guys you menetion and I even rate Morales above those guys also. I will get flamed for this but I honestly feel Morales was not shot during the second Pac fight. I say this because I love Morales (huge fan) and I have been following him even before he beat Zaragosa.

Actually I don't consider Morales to have been shot against Manny in the second bout, and I rate it as possibly his best win of them all (maybe #2 behind Barrera I). Morales didn't fight like a shot fighter at all. However I do think he had declined since he beat Pacquiao the previous year and also may have been able to avoid a KO loss if the fight was fought at 135lbs.

ATG's....well I'm pretty hard on people and I only consider Morales and Barrera as ATG's he beat. Those guys you mentioned on Leonards list, to be honest, I don't consider any of the ATG's. HOF maybe but not ATG's....unless someone can explain to me why they are among the top 50 greatest fighters let along top 100 fighters of alltime.

(Bearing in mind I have no actual list and I'm just estimating here) at the least I would personally call:

- Johnny Dundee a top 75 ATG. He was a skillful and agile boxer, he beat a host of top quality contenders and champions of the day and faced just about everyone. He did pick up losses and draws against a few fellow ATGs/Hall of Famers such as Leonard and Canzoneri however (although he did also beat Leonard a couple times too). He's renowned for his lastability as his career lasted 22 years and 340-ish bouts.

- Freddie Welsh a top 75 ATG. He's one of the greatest British boxers of all time and boasts wins against greats like Battling Nelson, Johnny Dundee, Ad Wolgast, Benny Leonard, Willie Ritchie, Jim Driscoll and Abe Attell. And losses/draws to Packey McFarland, Rocky Kansas and Johnny Kilbane.

- Johnny Kilbane a top 100 ATG. He's considered an all-time great ring general and despite apparently being reluctant to face real challenges as a champion he holds wins over Abe Attell, Johnny Dundee, Rocky Kansas, Freddie Welsh and top boxers of his day that didn't make the HoF like George "KO" Chaney; and losses to Eugene Criqui and Benny Leonard.

- Willie Ritchie a top 100 ATG. Beat: Jack Britton, Ad Wolgast, Freddie Welsh, Benny Leonard + good non-Hall of Famers such as Charley White, Leach Cross and Joe Mandot. Lost/drew to: Johnny Dundee, Benny Leonard, Ted (Kid) Lewis.

Sorry for the wall of text but I'm just stating these guys' cases as ATGs. There was an amazing batch of lightweights around at the time and they were all continually fighting each other. Morales and Barrera aren't much more impressive to me, if at all. Morales has wins over Marco Antonio Barrera, Manny Pacquiao, Daniel Zaragoza and bunch of good contenders/titlists who probably won't have much historical significance when all's said and done. Plus the record books state that he lost both trilogies against his two greatest opponents. Barrera has Erik Morales, Naseem Hamed, Johnny Tapia (& a bunch of good non-Hall of Famers) plus losses to Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao. Is that really better than the careers of the aforementioned old timers?

I try to, but when pac beat these guys:
Sasakul was the best at 112
Ledwaba was the best at 122
Barrera was the best at 126
Marquez was the best at 130
Hatton was the best at 140
Cotto was top 3 WW

So it's not like he backdoored his way to these titles. He beat the #1 guy and thats pretty much all you can ask from him. Also outside of Marquez, he didn't just beat these guys but can in as the challenger and completely dominated the #1 guy in that division (not to d1ckride)

That's all very impressive by today's standards but I question the historical significance of wins over names like Ledbawa and Sasakul. And a nice little run of defenses would have been nice at some point (maybe he'll have one at welterweight though).

[prometheuslord]

very, very impressed so far with the responses in this thread. is there hope for this website?

[Khalid X]

very, very impressed so far with the responses in this thread. is there hope for this website?

Honestly I try my best. But when people start post troll responses and flaming...my hand is pretty much forced to respond back (as sad/pathetic as that may sound).

[Pullcounter]

voted pacquiao, cause I want to break the poll. It's useless to compare pac to leonard. 2 different eras.