Sugar Ray Leonard vs Tommy Burns

[Cojimar 1946]

This seems like a good matchup to me, who do people think would win?

[Ambling Alp II]

I guess I am going to have to ask, what the weight limit would be?

[Kalan]

Burns was training for a World Middleweight Title Fight with Tommy Ryan when he got the offer to fight Hart for the World Heavyweight Title.. He earlier extended an offer to fight Hart that wasn't excepted.. but when Hart couldn't reach agreement with his preferred challengers he went back to Burns. Burns pulled out of the Middleweight Title Fight to go for the more prestigious title -- so presumably Burns could train down to Middleweight.

Burns only weighed 168 for Jack Johnson, which made him look like a midget ... and ridiculously over-matched... This outraged famed writer Jack London so much that he started the call for Jim Jeffries to "Emerge from his alfalfa farm and wipe the golden smile off Jack Johnson's face... Jeff, it's up to you."

[BoxBuzz]

I believe it was not accepted....and was excepted.

[Kalan]

Yup, noticed that the instant I posted it. It's like typing won when you're thinking one or mixing they're their and there.. You're thinking of the next sentence.

[Ambling Alp II]

This is difficult to say because Leonard didn't fight very much at middleweight. It's certainly not difficult to imagine the Leonard who beat Hagler beating Burns at 160.
Burns had several fights as heavyweight champions where he weighed in the the 170s. That version of Burns would be difficult to beat.

[Sidney Carton]

How about Jimmy Wilde vs Primo Carnera?

[SteveO]

How about Jimmy Wilde vs Primo Carnera?

Easy win for Wilde :-)

[HomicideHenry]

Tommy Burns, in his own time (against middleweights) was certainly one of the top five of his era. He split wins and losses with the likes of Jack (Twin) Sullivan, Hugo Kelly, Dave Barry. Of course the names are meaningless if you don't know who they were, or their actual worth as fighters. I suppose maybe the best way to evaluate Burns is the fact that he was so successful against physically superior opponents, even in his pro debut.

Imagine, if you will, someone like Marvin Hagler (5'9") winning the heavyweight title from someone like Anthony Joshua or Joseoph Parker--- and the fact that Burns was 5'7" magnifies the significance. Could Sugar Ray Leonard have won titles at heavyweight? Cruiserweight? Hell, his "Supermiddleweight/LightHeavyweight" battle with Donny LaLonde was something of a joke, and it was a hard fight for him: the fact that he retired (once again) rather than face his mandatory Denis Andries, showed that Leonard wasn't a true, committed light heavyweight. Like Roy Jones in later years, he only wanted to experiment.

No disrespect to LaLonde, but he certainly wasn't an all-time great 175 pounder. However, Burns did defeat an atg in Philadelphia Jack O'Brien (twice, though he was robbed the first time with a draw). Burns was quick-footed, explosive, and hard hitting. This sort of style was very hard for many to overcome in his era. It was very 'Leonard-Like' in a way, in which Burns understood the psychology of the game as well as the fundamentals. Impressions are everything, and he used that to his advantage when he fought O'Brien and Hart, winning 20 round decisions.

It'd be an interesting fight to have watched, that's for sure. But I honestly think that Burns had the greater conditioning and the edge in power and ferocity to have won over on Leonard over twelve, fifteen, twenty rounds. In a rematch? Maybe Leonard wins, because Ray (like Joe Louis) was superior in return bouts.

[Kalan]

Leonard was a very smart businessman... He bribed Lalonde with millions of dollars to fight 7 pounds below his normally dried out weigh-in weight -- knowing it would drain him badly... Lalonde started off well and decked Leonard early, but was soon struggling... like Chad Dawson, when he shed 7 pounds to face Andre Ward, the gas tank was soon empty and the stoppage was inevitable.. Ward doesn't knock a lot of people out.

In Ward's case he wasn't awarded Dawson's Light Heavyweight Title when he stopped him -- because you can't win 2 divisional World Titles in one night fighting in one weight division... Leonard worked it out with the orgs so both titles were on the line... He became a cheap 5-Division World Champion.

Another case of this was James Toney knocking out Iran Barkley for the 168-pound World Title after Barkley beat Tommy Hearns for his Light Heavyweight Title.. Toney wasn't awarded 2 World Titles on one night either.. Calculations like this never got by Leonard.. Mayweather also worked it out with the orgs -- who allowed him to defend both his World Welterweight AND World Super Welterweight titles in his rematch with Marcos Maidana.. Nice.