Be under no illusions. Sugar Ray Leonard was the media darling of the boxing world
from the late 1970’s to the mid to late 1990’s. Following on from his Olympic Gold
medal in the 1976 Olympics, boxing and general sports fans alike followed his career.
From his first world title win against Wilfred Benitez through his two fights (in prime) against Roberto Duran, his epic with Thomas Hearns through to his last welterweight fight in 1982 against Bruce Finch he was adored by the American public. Leonard retired after this fight only to come back in 1984 to beat Kevin Howard albeit in less than impressive circumstances. Another break from boxing followed for nearly a whole three years before Ray returned to fight long term middleweight champion “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler.
Although given little or no chance he gained a controversial split decision over Hagler. Regardless of your thoughts on this outcome, Ray Leonard fought superbly in a new weight division and after such a long absence.
However this is where it started to go wrong with the boxing and sports public. Some
boxing fans resented him for beating Hagler. He also started using the World boxing
governing bodies to his advantage. He beat a big light heavyweight champion in Donny
Lalonde but made Lalonde come down to the super middleweight limit so that the WBC
would sanction the bout for the super middle and light heavyweight crowns. He then
took on fellow faded legends in Duran and Hearns in rematches, getting lucky to
gain a draw from the Hearns rematch. 2 defeats followed to Terry Norris and Hector
Camacho and rumours and an admittance over drug use further tarnished Ray’s image.
Boxing is quiet around this time of the year so over the last couple of weeks, I have watched every Ray Leonard bout that I own ( 32 out of his 40 pro bouts ) just to see how good/ great Ray Leonard was. Several patterns emerged from watching these bouts and these points are below.
1/. Ray Leonard had tremendous hand and foot speed
This is an obvious point. Leonard was known throughout his career for his speed of hand and foot. Whirlwind flurries were often part of his game throughout his career especially when pushed onto the back foot. His handspeed would’ve given any other welterweight in the world in any era trouble.
2/. Ray Leonard was a tremendous body puncher
Probably not that many people are aware of this. However Leonard went to the body hard and he went to the body often. I would go so far to say that I was shocked just how many body punches Leonard would throw, especially in his prime years. Pete Ranzany, Thomas Hearns, and Ayub Kalule were all subject to vicious body punches when pressed back to the ropes. I would go so far as to say Leonard was a great body puncher. He didn’t have knockout power to the body like a Julio Cesar Chavez but Leonard rarely threw one punch at a time when attacking the body. Watch some of his earlier fights and see what I mean.
3/. Ray Leonard was NOT that elusive
My journey of watching Leonards career started with amateur bouts from 1974 through the Olympic triumph in 1976 and Leonard got hit a lot more than I remembered he did, but used his speed to land more punches. Leonard was an amateur then, and I thought that would change as I went through watching his career. However it didn’t to the extent that I was thinking. This was worse when Leonard didn’t really think that the opposition was that testing.
In a lot of early Pro bouts Leonard often neglected to move his head and often got hit with the straight jabs. This continued against Duran and Hearns, although both were great fighters. However against people like Larry Bonds and Ayub Kalule, Leonard almost neglected his defence and relied on outright speed.
After being narrowly ahead of Ayub Kalule in Leonards attempt at the light middleweight
crown, Leonard basically battered Kalule to a standstill from the mid rounds without
no regard to his own defense. Leonard’s head was snapped back so many times from
big punches in that fight but again found what was needed to win. He didn’t take
that many punches from Marvin Hagler but Leonard was a natural welterweight so his
speed took him away from a lot of Marvin’s punches.
When the speed and reflexes went on the decline, his natural defence was not that good. Lalonde, Hearns in the rematch and Norris all hit Leonard with lots of punches.
4/. Ray Leonard was quite a dirty fighter (for a media darling)
Ray Leonard was a winner. However he did everything he could to keep it that way. A lot of his punches were below the belt when fired in combination, he held and punched and got away with a hell of a lot. But hey, if you are the fan favourite, even the referee’s are loathe to warn you.
5/. Ray Leonard had a very good chin
I started following boxing in the mid 1980’s. Around this time Ray Leonard was dropped in his first comeback fight by Kevin Howard. He was dropped in subsequent bouts against Donny Lalonde, Thomas Hearns, Terry Norris and Hector Camacho. Obviously Leonard was past his best at these later stages of his career. However because of this I often thought Leonard never had the sturdiest chin. How wrong was I? Leonard had an excellent chin. As stated earlier, his defence wasn’t as good as perceived and seeing punches from Duran and Hearns bounce off him, really has made me revaluate.
THE CONCLUSION
So how good was Sugar Ray Leonard? Well I always thought of him as an all time great,
one of the very best the welterweight division has ever produced. Capable of testing
the legendary original “Sugar” Ray Robinson.
What do I think now? Well, definitely a great fighter but I wouldn’t put him in the top 5 of all time at the weight. I think Robinson would’ve beat him comprehensively as would a few others.
Seeing him in so many fights over the last few weeks, I feel Aaron Pryor would’ve have given him hell had “The Hawk” moved up to welterweight. So great but not super great.
By JIMMY LAST (EDITOR)
