Sugar Ray Leonard's private gym fights

[Venceremos]

Hello,

I've heard that Leonard made some private gym fights in their retirement, in late-1986 and early-1987, prior his classic against Marvin Hagler. Have anyone more information about it?

Thanks,

Pedro

[Justin]

I don't know anything about it, personally, but I'm sure you'd get a better response posting this anywhere else other than the Amateurboxing forum.

[TerribleTerry]

SRL said at the time that his sparring in preparartion for Hagler consisted of wearing 8 oz gloves, no head gear and even having a ref in attendance, to try and mimick the reality of a boxing match.

Dunno how true it is, but it seemed to help as he certainly didnt look rusty that night!

[Syntax Error]

Hello,

I've heard that Leonard made some private gym fights in their retirement, in late-1986 and early-1987, prior his classic against Marvin Hagler. Have anyone more information about it?

Thanks,

Pedro

Sugar Ray has said this is true.

He looked looser than Hagler that night, but then he had a knack of coming back after long lay-offs & looking ok.

[Venceremos]

To quote KOJOE from December 2005:

"Leonard had a very long training camp for the Hagler fight it came to light after the fight.

After the Hagler fight it was also revealed that Leonard had had a number of full 12 round fights behind closed doors. These were officially sparring sessions, but with a few major differences. There were no headgaurds used, small gloves and the sparring partners were told to try there best to win over the full 12 rounds. They were basically REAL fights.

Two of the sparring were Quincy Taylor and Anthony Fletcher (who was a southpaw). I heard thet Taylor floored leonard during one of these 'fights'."