Was Leonard THAT good?

Have Mayweather lost to a former lightweight when he was welterweight champion? Nah, I remember him dominating him

 

:bears:

 

:laugh100:

 

Have Floyd fought a fighter as good as prime Duran in his entire career?

WOULD Floyd have fought a prime Duran?

The answer is no to both.

 

whose opponents were younger, hungrier and lionier?

 

I could see floyd fighting him at lightweight since pbf wasnt a coward then.

 

was Duran "prime" when Leonard fought him in either weight class or age? No to both. Had Mayweather fought a prime smaller fighter moving up after being a respected champion at the lower weights? Yes, twice. Do you have a case that would hold up in a court of law ? Absolutely not.

 

I was about to say that welterweight floyd would have jumped on fighting a smaller fighter coming up fron two weightclasses, but then I rebembered the pacquiao situation

 

Pacquiao situation was out of character. Plus Pacquiao was also to blame let's not forget.

As I said before, this was the first time in history where you had two megastars at the height of their games each with a legitimate argument to be the A side of the promotion and to dictate terms. Never happened before, think about it. Leonard Duran and even Leonard Hearns were easier fights to make as Leonard was obviously the A side of each promotion even though the other guy was also a big star .

Y'all need to think. Don't make me have to keep pointing things like this out

 

Maidana doesn't count! :nono:

 

Lmao. Floyd just wasn't himself for all those years.

 

Lol

Seriously though Floyd makes big fights happen quickly typically. Think about it

 

not above lightweight

 

indeed

 

Leonard might have beaten 3 p4p #1 guys at the time he beat them?

Duran, Hearns, and Hagler all might have been p4p #1. I'm almost positive Hagler was, but the other two certainly could have been.

Who else has that type of notch on their belt?

 

I can't think of anybody... It's crazy

 

I'm not sure Hearns was p4p # 1 at that time, since he had a rather thin resume then. The only good/decent guys he beat were Cuevas, espana, an old Gray, bruce curry and the infamous Luis Primera ::. A pretty good resume (especially for a fighter as young as Hearns was at the time), but not close to one being good enough to be considered p4p the best, I think.

Still hearns was definitively considered one of the top p4p fighter at the time, probably in the top 5.

Looking at his record, I see that he made a title defense against a guy who was 10-9-2.!!!!! What was the deal with that, I tought a guy needed to be in the top 10 to fight for a world title.

 

hearns wasn't . Hagler was and Duran may have been. You're right though there's no knocking Sugar Ray's accomplishments. Dude was badass.

 

Hearns was definitely up there though... The Cuevas KO was huge

 

Leonard over a 2 year span had the best resume in history. The best 2 years in history : Benitez, Duran, Hearns. That's crazy. Hagler was just icing on the cake.

Chavez came close in fighting Taylor and then Whitaker. He also took on De La Hoya when Oscar was pretty much the P4P.

 

DLH was never the P4P a day in his life.

His prime coincided with Roy's prime, and I don't think I have to state the obvious on who was better.

 

Xplosive you're just an argumentative fella. I agree with you that Jones was better and should have been called the P4P from Toney up to the point that he lost to Tarver but the fact is the magazines considered Oscar as the P4P during a stretch.

Same with Mosley, he was never P4P in my eyes either and his p4p recognition also coincided with Jones as was Titos.

If this is about P4P in our personal opinions then we go down a slippery slope though in this discussion. For I can say that in 1987 when Leonard beat him, Hagler was not the p4p but rather it was Tyson.

So which way do you want to go you pesky mosquito

 

DLH wasn't p4p then, Whitaker was

 

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine's_Annual_Ratings:_Pound_For_Pound--1990s

 

The Ring did have Oscar at #1 after he beat Pernell and Roy lost to Griffin.

Of course it was wrong, especially in hindsight, but the reasoning was that Oscar was beating everyone whereas Roy ruled an empty division

 

Yeah I know I was just referring to the first DLH/Chavez fight

 

Fair enough, but Oscar would have been close to the top.

 

Well, I found this:

1981

KO Magazine (January)
1 - Thomas Hearns
2 - Sugar Ray Leonard
3 - Marvin Hagler
4 - Larry Holmes
5 - Alexis Arguello
6 - Wilfredo Gomez
7 - Eddie Mustafa Muhammad
8 - Matt Saad Muhammmad
9 - Wilfred Benitez
10 - Roberto Duran/Aaron Pryor (tie)

Ring Magazine didn't do p4p lists back then. They did have Hearns as the 1980 fighter of the year and had him rated #2 behind Leonard at welter, but that may have been because Leonard was the champ and so he was a default top spot holder. Also, Hearns ended up being the betting favorite by the time the fight occurred.

 

Weird to see Duran so low. Looking it up as of January of 81 he was 69-1 and had defeated Carlos Palomino the year before.

edit: Wait a minute i meant January 1980. The "Brawl in Montreal" was in 81 and he already beat Ray. Then the only thing that makes sense is they dumped him near off the chart as punishment for the No Mas fight.

 

nice find. Seems like I was wrong



Surprised to see the muhammed ranked so high. I never tought they were that highly regarded