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

[Cojimar 1946]

Mayweather beating more ranked contenders than Leonard, having better longevity, having more success weight climbing, being more consistent are just cold, hard facts.

I'm sorry you don't seem to like it but that's just how it is

Cold, irrelevant facts.

More ranked contenders? Well there you go again, assuming that a 10th ranked contender is the same as a #1 contender, and that a #1 contender in one era is always the equal to the #1 in another.

Better longevity? So frikkin what. Scores of fighters have fought longer than Mayweather. Means next to nothing.

How something relevant?
Like the best fighter that Leonard beat was the better than the best that Mayweather beat.
That the 2nd best was better than the best that Mayweather beat.
That the third best fighter that Leonard beat was better than the best Mayweather beat.
That the fourth best fighter that Leonard beat was better than the best Mayweather beat.

(I know you are desperate, but please don't bring up Pacquiao. He was way past it by the time they had their awful fight. Maybe we can hear about legends like Diego Corrales or Zab Judah)

I'm sorry you don't seem to like it but that's just how it is

The problem is that cross-era comparisons are highly subjective. You are free to believe that Leonard's opponents were far better but it remains an opinion. They never fought and don't have common opponents.

Moreover there are many people regarded as great fighters who didn't preside over strong eras or beat great opponents.

Marvin Hagler is widely regarded as a great fighter despite never beating a great middleweight.

Joe Louis is still ranked highly by many despite the fact that his era is widely regarded as lacking in talent.

[Cojimar 1946]

For instance I doubt anyone here believe Lennox Lewis or Evander Holyfield would lose to anyone Joe Louis beat.

If Louis is to be rated ahead of either of them it certainly doesn't seem to be based on competition.

[Ambling Alp II]

Well yes it's subjective. It's an opinion. However, good opinion is more important than a useless fact.

I don't have much problem with your last couple of posts.
As for Joe Louis, I agree that that the opponents that Joe Louis beat were not as good as Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield or were likely to have beaten either. However, there are a few that could have beat them on a given night.

I also think that none of Lewis opponents (at the time that Lewis fought them) would have beat Joe Louis.
Also don't think that Joe Louis would have lost to McCall or Rahman.

Obviously it's great when we have head to head match ups and common opponents to look at. We also should look hard at their carers (which includes the stages of fighter's careers and the stages of their opponents when fought) and also look at film, if available.

If we don't have head to head match ups and/or common opponents, we go on what we have. And we should try to be as objective as we can regardless of eras. We should not hold something against a fighter from one era that is similar to a fighter from another era whom we don't hold it against.

[Joel Day Daitch]

Jack Dempsey, said, "They don'want Joe Louis to lose, picking who he can fight."

He was referring to Uncle Mike Jacobs., who controlled all Championship fights in NY. Which includes, Henry Armstrong and Lou Amber's, just to mention a few of his house champions. Jacobs held the lease on MSG and 25% of Joe Louis. He had it wrapped up.

[tiny_acres]

PAC still isn't way way past it.

Damn people love to rewrite history
Mayweather beat Pacquiao 5 years ago.
Pacquiao is still a top 3 welterweight with a belt. But 5 years ago he was a decrepit old man.
Damn this forum is hilarious

[Onetimeonly]

PAC still isn't way way past it.

Damn people love to rewrite history
Mayweather beat Pacquiao 5 years ago.
Pacquiao is still a top 3 welterweight with a belt. But 5 years ago he was a decrepit old man.
Damn this forum is hilarious

No shit, I hate no fighter more than the subject of the thread but hearns wasn't over trained, Duran wasn't rushed and hagler wasn't ancient. Floyd was the best, and faced the best of his era, not debatable.

[Ambling Alp II]

You are wording this very carefully. You know he and Pacquio should have fought several years earlier. It would have been a much better fight. Their fight was about important as Jones-Hopkins II.

[Ambling Alp II]

PAC still isn't way way past it.

Damn people love to rewrite history
Mayweather beat Pacquiao 5 years ago.
Pacquiao is still a top 3 welterweight with a belt. But 5 years ago he was a decrepit old man.
Damn this forum is hilarious

It's not rewriting history at all. Going into their fight, everyone knew they were in their primes any more. This fight should have happened about 5 years earlier.
Mayweather was 38 an clearly slowing down. Pacquiao even more so. He was 36 and had had been in a lot of tough fights. He had not stopped anyone in 6 years. He had been knocked out by Cotto and lost to the great Tim Bradley during this time.

It's rewriting history by saying this was relevant fight. It wasn't. It was just a money grab.
Look at the fight itself. It was total crap. That would not have happened had they fought earlier.

That Pacquiao has some paper title doesn't change anything. His nowhere near the fighter he once was.
Ray Robinson was 38 and the middleweight champ. He was also about 8 years past his best and nowhere near the fighter he once was.

[tiny_acres]

Damn people love to rewrite history
Mayweather beat Pacquiao 5 years ago.
Pacquiao is still a top 3 welterweight with a belt. But 5 years ago he was a decrepit old man.
Damn this forum is hilarious

It's not rewriting history at all. Going into their fight, everyone knew they were in their primes any more. This fight should have happened about 5 years earlier.
Mayweather was 38 an clearly slowing down. Pacquiao even more so. He was 36 and had had been in a lot of tough fights. He had not stopped anyone in 6 years. He had been knocked out by Cotto and lost to the great Tim Bradley during this time.

It's rewriting history by saying this was relevant fight. It wasn't. It was just a money grab.
Look at the fight itself. It was total crap. That would not have happened had they fought earlier.

That Pacquiao has some paper title doesn't change anything. His nowhere near the fighter he once was.
Ray Robinson was 38 and the middleweight champ. He was also about 8 years past his best and nowhere near the fighter he once was.

1st off he did not get knocked out by Cotto. Pac won that fight.
2nd the Bradley fight was a controversial decision to say the least.
No one said either was prime at the time of their fight. But Mayweather was still rated p4p #1 by the majority of writers and Pac was rated as the #2 welterweight.

Your lack of objectivity and personal bias make this a dead subject. You are doing nothing but trying to down play the 2 greatest pound for pound fighters of their generation.

[Ambling Alp II]

Sorry, that was Marquez, not Cotto who knocked Pacquiao out.
5 years earlier, Pacquiao would have beaten Tim Bradley a lot easier. If you want to say Pac should have got a close decision, fine. Not the point.
They were the top fighters of their era.
Would have been nice had they fought a lot sooner.
There was a fairly big window of opportunity for it to have have happened.
You can spin it any way you want, but they were clearly not a their best when they actually fought.
The fight they did have sucked. It was meaningless.
Had they fought earlier, it may have been a great fight, and certainly would have meant something.

I am just saying what happened without spinning it. Let me know what you disagree with.

[Onetimeonly]

You are wording this very carefully. You know he and Pacquio should have fought several years earlier. It would have been a much better fight. Their fight was about important as Jones-Hopkins II.

Me? That certainly is a ridiculous comparison. Manny is still relevant!

[theone]

That's just one fight. And it was way over his natural weight of 130-135. That said, Whitaker did outbox him, I had it 120-108 for Sweet Pea..

He was better at 140 than he was at 130 and he brought Whitaker down to 142. His resume past the loss isn't better than Whitaker's either. Neither is top 5, just the easiest way to point out that egregious error. Chavez is closer to top 50 than top 5.

Whitaker weighed in at 145. Chavez was 142.

[elmersalsa]

Hey! Welcome home, the one!

[Ambling Alp II]

Hope you post a lot, Theone!

[theone]

Hey! Welcome home, the one!

Thanks man!

[theone]

Hope you post a lot, Theone!

Hey Ambling! Lets see; missed being here!

[Tevfik1907]

Solid list, even though it's really hard to make a mixed list from all other weight divisions.

[p4p1]

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.

No you pretend not to or genuinely don’t understand about fight night weights. Pacquiao has been outweighed in every fight since his jump to 140/147