As great as Sugar Ray Leonard is, have any you long-time boxing fans ever felt that he always...

[LatinTerminator480]

comes off as a phony and an opportunist as both a person and boxer?

This is not to take anything way from the great legend, Sugar Ray Leonard but sometimes, I've always felt that some of his accomplishments such as his victory over Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran(in both rematches) and Danny Lalonde, are overrated due to his shady negotiation practices.

When you look past SRL's nice guy personality, you can tell that something isn't just right. He's always seems to be afraid to give out his honest opinion and intentions whenever he commentates a boxing match and he made his boxing career to appear greater than it actually it is at the expense of other talented boxers of the 1980s(Donald Curry and Marvin Hagler).

People in this day often bash Floyd Mayweather Jr for his trash talk personality, pulling all of the rigorous negotiation crap on certain boxers(Shane Mosley, Manny Pacquiao, etc.) and "running" in his boxing fights when Sugar Ray Leonard did about all of the same exact things(with Marvin Hagler regarding ridiculous negotiations and "running" during a fight) Floyd did and was the very first person to do these crooked things yet no one bats an eye or ever bashed Sugar Ray Leonard for it. I'm not even much of Floyd fan but at least he was honest about his intentions and didn't hide anything unlike Sugar Ray Leonard. I don't allow my dislike of a certain boxer to blind me from seeing their actual skills and abilities unlike all of the Floyd Haters.

Again, this isn't to really take anything away from Sugar Ray Leonard. He's still certainly is one of the top 15 greatest P4P boxers of all time but his true boxing accomplishments were mostly in the Welterweight division(minus the "No Mas" fight).

 

[MC Paul Barman]

"opportunistic as a person"?? How so?

I'm not going to hold it against a boxer being opportunistic since they have to make themselves marketable.

 

[Sharkey]

His public persona that him and his team polished for him back in the day was about as phony as it gets. That image was loosened quite a bit as he went on in his career and he became much more engaging and open with who he was. But when he was first presented to the public it was as fake as can be. Not going to knock him for his negotiations, though, since each of his opponents named there were more than happy to agree to each deal and were very well compensated as a result.

 

[sportkillergreg]

i didn't like the one documentary he did recently involving roberto duran where he was pressing duran about their second fight and what the deal was with the 'no mas' thing and SRL said some BS like 'I wanted to comfort him, I knew he was lying but I wanted to comfort him.' I didn't like the way he was trying to son Duran and he needs to realize Duran doesn't owe him shit - SRL won that, Duran can say whatever BS about the reason for 'no mas,' I really don't care.

I think he tries to be a nice guy tho or thinks he is

 

[Seano]

As a person, yeah ,sort of.

He was actually sort of classless in certain situations. He made fun of Tommy Hearns speech impediment. There's a lot of rumors that he was a coke fiend too.

One of my favorite fighters though. I try not to let a fighters actions outside the ring keep me from enjoying his fights.

 

[mrsenor]

testament to floy greatness

 

[LatinTerminator480]

"opportunistic as a person"?? How so?

I'm not going to hold it against a boxer being opportunistic since they have to make themselves marketable.

He was opportunistic in a sense that he boosted his own boxing career at the expense of other talented boxers(one of the boxers who haven't lived up their full potential) like Donald Curry manipulating him by using some BS statements directed to him about the World Welterweight champion belts being the "most prestigious weight division belts" in order for for him to get Curry to stay away from the Middleweight division(his more natural weight class) to fight Marvin Hagler and basically, Curry believed him since Leonard was his idol, thus causing Curry to constantly kill himself making 147 to fight against Lloyd Honeyghan and started losing his fights in a more disappointing fashion. Although Curry is slightly mostly to blame for his own downfall as a world class boxer due to his poor diet habits and not-so-high In-The-Ring boxing intelligence, Leonard plays a role into it.

Leonard was also notorious for using Marvin Hagler as his "friend" and manipulating him into offfcially making a boxing match between each other at Hagler's lower point of his career, along with making many rigorous negotiations for the match to actually happen. Hagler is also to blame for foolishing falling for SRL's little games but still.

Let's not forget about the 2 rematches with Roberto Duran(one of them being the "No Mas" fight) where Leonard was wise enough to know about Duran's poor training and eating habits, along with the fact that Duran's first fight and victory over SRL was his highest boxing salary he ever made in his career at the time, which gave Leonard the idea to give Duran an immediate rematch while Duran was too busy celebrating his victory over him, partying like there's no tomorrow. I've read somewhere that after the "No Mas" fight, Duran wanted another rematch with Leonard and was borderline depressed at the time. Leonard then, rejected that offer and decided to wait several years lated to finally give him that 2nd rematch(which was a pretty crappy and dull fight) when Duran is busy burning himself out constantly ballooing up, then starving himself to make weight.

Again, this isn't to take anything away from Sugar Ray Leonard but I think his TKO victories over Wilfred Benitez and Thomas Hearns are what truly defined his greatness, not his victories over Roberto Duran and the rest of his fights above 147 and definately not his victory over Marvin Hagler.

 

[LatinTerminator480]

As a person, yeah ,sort of.

He was actually sort of classless in certain situations. He made fun of Tommy Hearns speech impediment. There's a lot of rumors that he was a coke fiend too.

One of my favorite fighters though. I try not to let a fighters actions outside the ring keep me from enjoying his fights.

Yeah, the same can be said for Floyd Mayweather Jr, although everyone is too busy allowing their hatred of Floyd(both as a person and a fighter, due to his domestic violence charges and trash talking) to blind them from seeing his actual boxing skills and talent, looking at his footwork and defense as "running" and "being boring" while ignoring his earlier fights(before his fight against De La Hoya) when he used to fight more aggressively and wasn't getting into much legal trouble at the time.

 

[caesar]

As a person, yeah ,sort of.

He was actually sort of classless in certain situations. He made fun of Tommy Hearns speech impediment. There's a lot of rumors that he was a coke fiend too.

One of my favorite fighters though. I try not to let a fighters actions outside the ring keep me from enjoying his fights.

Yeah good point, Sugar Ray was never a saint, but behind closed doors, that's his business.
However do you think he ducked 'Aaron Pryor'?

 

[djacobox372]

He came off as smart to me... he had the negotiating power and used it, much in the same way floyd does.

 

[Seano]

Yeah good point, Sugar Ray was never a saint, but behind closed doors, that's his business.
However do you think he ducked 'Aaron Pryor'?

Well, that fight was supposedly made when Ray retired but you can't really argue with Ray's reason for retiring the first time. I think its unfortunate that they never fought but I think its a bit much to say Ray ducked him. Not considering who Ray fought in that period.

 

[wilddeuces]

As a person, yeah ,sort of.

He was actually sort of classless in certain situations. He made fun of Tommy Hearns speech impediment. There's a lot of rumors that he was a coke fiend too.

One of my favorite fighters though. I try not to let a fighters actions outside the ring keep me from enjoying his fights.

He did nothing for Dundee when Mike Trainer was dicking him around. In fact, Leonard just sent him a letter later saying "I hope we can be friends" and Dundee, loyal to a fault, forgot everything. Yeah, classless is the word that comes to mind, though there may be a lot more to that story.

 

[SaiWa]

Thats why SRL really didn't "beat" Duran IMO. He simply stacked the deck heavily in his favor and abused an out of shape Duran in the ring but did he beat the best version (or even a good version) of Duran? Nope.

 

[Seano]

Thats why SRL really didn't "beat" Duran IMO. He simply stacked the deck heavily in his favor and abused an out of shape Duran in the ring but did he beat the best version (or even a good version) of Duran? Nope.

BS. They fought just a few months after Duran beat him. Fans have never considered a single loss on Duran's resume as legitimate.

 

[nac386]

Pretty sure I heard one of the reporters who covered that fight say that Roberto Duran drank beef broth after weigh-ins.

 

[Seano]

Pretty sure I heard one of the reporters who covered that fight say that Roberto Duran drank beef broth after weigh-ins.

Yeah, I've heard all the stories. He ate too much steak and had to poop during the fight is another one. It wasn't his fault that he lost.

 

[TheGreatA]

I would say that he had an impressive career before the eye injury. Everything after that, is questionable. He did take on Benitez (38-0), Duran (72-1) and Hearns (32-0), back when all of them were considered near unbeatable, all of them at their peaks. Mayweather never even came close to facing such competition.

Leonard played politics with Hagler, but he was smaller and had only fought twice in the past 6 years. It was the only way that he could've hung in there with Hagler at that point. Hagler would've likely trashed him a couple of years earlier. An aging Hagler vs an inactive Leonard was atleast a competitive match-up.

 

[Stormtrooper85]

BS. They fought just a few months after Duran beat him. Fans have never considered a single loss on Duran's resume as legitimate.

Hearns didn't knock him out, Druan was trying to find his contacts and Hearns pointed out that they were on the canvas.


Terrible stoppage

 

[Seano]

Hearns didn't knock him out, Druan was trying to find his contacts and Hearns pointed out that they were on the canvas.


Terrible stoppage

Oh he was past his best there. Doesn't count.

 

[RascalBird]

I love Duran as a fighter, but the posts in the thread with lists of excuses are hilarious. He legit lost to SRL in the second fight, his lack of training later in his career is also directly his fault.

I've actually heard someone state that the machismo culture in Panama is the reason why he didn't train, and that's why he lost his fights. Awful reasoning.