The Great Sugar Ray Leonard Top 5 All-time Greatest Fighters Ever

[littlepug]

Try opening your eyes.

People are rated based on accomplishments in their own eras and in that respect they both seem to have a pretty clear edge. Manny Pacquiao is a guy who fought extensively at featherweight yet was able to rise all the way to welterweight and campaign there with success for years.

That would be like Sugar Ray Leonard rising to light heavyweight and beating the best light heavyweights year after year while past his prime and giving up massive amounts of height and reach fight after fight.

Manny Pacquiao was only 5'5 1/2. It's pretty amazing that someone who started where he did was able to campaign successfully so high in weight and remain consistent.

I’m back and forth with this, Manny and Floyd consistently beat good, very good and occasionally great fighters (in their prime though ?), rose through the weights and had longevity, Ray on the other hand wasn’t consistent in that he kept having lay offs but that aside he took down some major players in the game, Benetez, Hearns, Duran and Hagler is a serious list and I can’t really think of anyone else that could’ve pulled those wins off

[Ambling Alp II]

People rate fighters in various ways. some people resort to "accomplishments" i.e. Paper titles, WBS title defenses etc.
Other people look at the quality of opponents that they fought and how they fared, taking into consideration the the stages of everyone's careers. Some people also actually watch the fights (when available) and judge how good someone was.

How tall someone is really should not be a factor when rating them. How good they were should be.

cojimar is contradicting himself. In another thread, he went on about Hearns not fighting McCallum (the 5th best fighter he could have fought ) and how you have to beat the very best of your era.
Mayweather and Pac had several years to fight each other when it would have mattered. They didn't.

Their best wins are a joke compared to Leonard's.

[Duran1970]

To Leonard's defence his era of boxing was way more tougher and harder than Manny and Floyd's....I don't think either would've had the success they had if they fought in the 70s-80s.

[Cojimar 1946]

People rate fighters in various ways. some people resort to "accomplishments" i.e. Paper titles, WBS title defenses etc.
Other people look at the quality of opponents that they fought and how they fared, taking into consideration the the stages of everyone's careers. Some people also actually watch the fights (when available) and judge how good someone was.

How tall someone is really should not be a factor when rating them. How good they were should be.

cojimar is contradicting himself. In another thread, he went on about Hearns not fighting McCallum (the 5th best fighter he could have fought ) and how you have to beat the very best of your era.
Mayweather and Pac had several years to fight each other when it would have mattered. They didn't.

Their best wins are a joke compared to Leonard's.

So who are all the top light heavyweights that Sugar Ray Leonard beat? Pacquiao campaigned at feathweight until his mid 20s. What he did would be the equivalent of Leonard tackling light heavies like Michael Spinks, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Dwight Qawi, and campaigning there years past his prime. with relative success. What is the best light heavy you would pick Leonard to beat?

For the record, Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez were excellent fighters lb for lb in addition to Manny's exploits against larger men.

Pacquiao and Mayweather not fighting each other earlier is not an issue vis a vis Leonard because Leonard was only facing the best for circa 3 years (1979-1981).
Pacquiao's prime was circa 2002-2011 and until 2009 he was doing an pretty good job of fighting the best. The one criticism is that he should have fought Erik Morales earlier.

[Onetimeonly]

If Leonard got on Manny's supersonic PED program, he'd be a 175 lb monster in no time.

[Ambling Alp II]

It's not Pacquiao jumped to fight much bigger guys. He gradually gained weight (however he did it) over time. He would be at one weight for a couple of years, and then move up. Then again. Then again.

He was fighting at his best weight class at the time he was a welterweight. It's not like he fought a featherweight one day, and then six months later fought a welterweight. He wasn't fighting welterweights in his mid-20s, which what it would for Leonard to fight light heavyweights in his mid-20s.

Just because you move up in weight and win a title doesn't make you better than someone else that pretty muich stayed the same their entire career.

Love how Pacquiao and Mayweather is not an issue because Leonard fought the best in a three year period of time. How ridiculous. Makes no sense.
Leonard beat them. He crammed four huge fights in less than two years. Mayweather and Pacquio avoided each other for 5 years. Oh yeah, and he came back and beat Hagler.

The one criticism is that he should have fought Morales earlier? Seriously?
How about Mayweather? How about not losing some of the fights that he did.

Pacquiao was a great fighter. He beat some very good competition. He was nowhere near as good as Ray Leonard.

[Cojimar 1946]

If Leonard got on Manny's supersonic PED program, he'd be a 175 lb monster in no time.

Manny's contemporaries have access to the same PEDs as Pacquiao. Yet they haven't replicated his weight climbing success. If it's a product of eras than there is nothing to stop them doing the same.

Why didn't Andre Ward use the same PEDs to move to heavyweight and beat Wladimir Klitschko
Why didn't Erik Morales use the same PEDs to move to welterweight and dominate?
Why doesn't Saul Alvarez use the same PEDs to make a move to cruiserweight?

Also, steroids were widespread as far back as the 1980s, Leonard was probably juicing late in his career

[Onetimeonly]

If Leonard got on Manny's supersonic PED program, he'd be a 175 lb monster in no time.

Manny's contemporaries have access to the same PEDs as Pacquiao. Yet they haven't replicated his weight climbing success. If it's a product of eras than there is nothing to stop them doing the same.

Manny started so light because he was a starving impoverished teenager. That's why he jumped from 112 directlyn to 122 and then right to 126. Taking the same amount of PED's Manny did isn't going to make up for the talent gap. LOL, just realized who I was responding too. Carry on, troll, carry on.

[Cojimar 1946]

Manny's contemporaries have access to the same PEDs as Pacquiao. Yet they haven't replicated his weight climbing success. If it's a product of eras than there is nothing to stop them doing the same.

Manny started so light because he was a starving impoverished teenager. That's why he jumped from 112 directlyn to 122 and then right to 126. Taking the same amount of PED's Manny did isn't going to make up for the talent gap. LOL, just realized who I was responding too. Carry on, troll, carry on.

He wasn't a starving teenager at 122 lb and 126 lb. He stayed there until he was mid-20s. Come on, be serious.

Thomas Hearns left welterweight at a younger age than Pacquiao left featherweight. Was Hearns a starving teenager at welterweight? Was Duran a starving teenager at lightweight?

Some of his best performances were at these weights like the win over Barrera.

[Cojimar 1946]

It's also worth noting that Manny's dimensions 5ft 5 1/2 with a 67 inch reach are pretty typical for someone fighting at 122 and 126. Erik Morales is actually taller than Pacquiao, so are a lot of other guys at that weight.

[Ambling Alp II]

Who cares? He just turned 21 when he he weighed 122. He wasn't going to stay at that weight the rest of his career. He wasn't fighting welterweights when he weighed 122 pounds. Talk about relevant things like his wins and losses, who he beat, who he did and didn't fight.

[elmersalsa]

Who cares? He just turned 21 when he he weighed 122. He wasn't going to stay at that weight the rest of his career. He wasn't fighting welterweights when he weighed 122 pounds. Talk about relevant things like his wins and losses, who he beat, who he did and didn't fight.

So, weight and height are not considered?

[Tony1244]

1. Sugar Ray Robinson
2. Henry Armstrong
3. Harry Greb
4. Sam Langford
5. Muhammad Ali

Something like that anyways.

[elmersalsa]

I really don't have a problem with Sugar Ray's selection.

[chrisjs1985]

If Leonard got on Manny's supersonic PED program, he'd be a 175 lb monster in no time.

Manny's contemporaries have access to the same PEDs as Pacquiao. Yet they haven't replicated his weight climbing success. If it's a product of eras than there is nothing to stop them doing the same.

Why didn't Andre Ward use the same PEDs to move to heavyweight and beat Wladimir Klitschko
Why didn't Erik Morales use the same PEDs to move to welterweight and dominate?
Why doesn't Saul Alvarez use the same PEDs to make a move to cruiserweight?

Also, steroids were widespread as far back as the 1980s, Leonard was probably juicing late in his career

All those fighters used PEDs they just weren't as good as Pacquaio. But the point is that the * next to modern era guys should count some when measuring with the best ever and their accomplishments.

[Ambling Alp II]

Who cares? He just turned 21 when he he weighed 122. He wasn't going to stay at that weight the rest of his career. He wasn't fighting welterweights when he weighed 122 pounds. Talk about relevant things like his wins and losses, who he beat, who he did and didn't fight.

So, weight and height are not considered?

Height no. We have weight classes, not height classes. Weight if a guy is a guy is giving up a lot of weight.

So if a guy weighs say 135 and beats a good fighter guy who ways 160, that means something.
But no you can't do your Roberto Duran BS and pretend that since a guy once weighed 135 you pretend that he weighed 135 for all of his fights the rest of his career.

[drunkenpiper36]

I like Muhammad Ali in the top 10. Can't see him at number 1 though.

[elmersalsa]

So, weight and height are not considered?

Height no. We have weight classes, not height classes. Weight if a guy is a guy is giving up a lot of weight.

So if a guy weighs say 135 and beats a good fighter guy who ways 160, that means something.
But no you can't do your Roberto Duran BS and pretend that since a guy once weighed 135 you pretend that he weighed 135 for all of his fights the rest of his career.

Oh, yeah. But for the great Sugar Ray Robinson against bigger Joey Maxim the loss doesn't count because of the heat, right? Oh, I see the point.

[oogiebe]

Height no. We have weight classes, not height classes. Weight if a guy is a guy is giving up a lot of weight.

So if a guy weighs say 135 and beats a good fighter guy who ways 160, that means something.
But no you can't do your Roberto Duran BS and pretend that since a guy once weighed 135 you pretend that he weighed 135 for all of his fights the rest of his career.

Oh, yeah. But for the great Sugar Ray Robinson against bigger Joey Maxim the loss doesn't count because of the heat, right? Oh, I see the point.

Stop that. How many HOF'ers and world champs did SRR beat during his career? He was clearly ahead on the cards vs Maxim, but he still lost. In the grand scheme it's obvious that he was the P4P best of all time.

[Cojimar 1946]

Who cares? He just turned 21 when he he weighed 122. He wasn't going to stay at that weight the rest of his career. He wasn't fighting welterweights when he weighed 122 pounds. Talk about relevant things like his wins and losses, who he beat, who he did and didn't fight.

Many fighters move up in weight but it is pretty rare for someone who campaigned at 122 and 126 until their mid 20s to enjoy success at welterweight to the degree Pacquiao did. Moving up in weight should not be the sole criteria in rating but it should count for something.

If Sugar Ray Leonard have moved up to light heavyweight and beaten scores of top fighters there it would be a big boost to his legacy.

Pacquiao's prime was circa 2002 to 2011 though I think welterweight was not a great weight for him despite his relative success. During that period he beat guys like Barrera, Cotto, Juan Manuel Marquez, Antonio Margarito with the only blemishes being a draw with Marquez and a loss to Morales avenged twice over.

[Onetimeonly]

Margarito? Lmao, at that point he was less threatening than lalonde.

[gilgamesh]

For me, it goes down to Ali, Armstrong, Charles, Greb, Langford, and Robinson. Really hard to say which one just misses it. Leonard himself would be next. I don't think anyone else really has a case.

I really don't see the case for Leonard being ahead of Pacquiao and Mayweather.

I do. He has 3 bigger wins than either of them ever managed except for arguably Mayweather's win over Pac.

[Ambling Alp II]

Mayweather was way past and Pacquiao was way, way past it when they fought. The fight was irrelevant. They should have fought each much sooner. The winner would have had their biggest win of their career.
Somehow Cojimar criticizes Hearns for not fight McCallum. Leonard is getting criticized for not beating more light heavyweights. But he ignores this.

I would go farther than three with Leonard. Benitez was a bigger win than anything Mayweather or Pacquiao had.

[Onetimeonly]

PAC still isn't way way past it.

[Ambling Alp II]

Your only going with one "way"?