BoxRec

I've read about him in magazines since I was young, the great Lightweight Benny Leonard. I can see from his record he had a fabulous career and beat many good and great fighters.

What are his best wins or even losses?

Who was the best he fought?

Who was the best he beat?

i rate the first lew tendler fight.....it's said he was the man who really made southpaw acceptable, and he was of far higher stock than al mccoy who had been the first southpaw world champ.....he ran leonard close in that first fight....one of the great non-champeens

He was basically the Ali of lightweights, fighting in an era bristling with talent. At lightweight he fought Hall-of-Fame caliber guys in, Johnny Dundee, Jack Britton, Johnny Kilbane, Rocky Kansas, Freddie Welsh, Willie Ritchie, and Lew Tendler. He took on many contenders as well, guys like, Ritchie Mitchell, Patsy Cline, Joe Welling and left hook artist Charley White.

With so many wins to choose from, I don't know if I can say which is best, but the Kilbane and Tender rematches are great examples of his ring I.Q. and ability. He was outboxed by the clever Kilbane in the first fight, losing a 10-round newspaper decision. He noticed that Kilbane had a double feint shift and left himself open briefly. In the rematch Leonard capitalized on this and became the first to stop Kilbane.

The first Tender fight was very close and Leonard described it as "the worst licking I ever had in my life...." Tender hurt Leonard in the first, had his nose bleeding in the third, and dropped him in the 8th. In the rematch, Hype Igoe wrote, "Leonard worked in circles around and toward the back of Tendler’s southpaw left so that Tendler was always shifting to get set again.” Leonard kept the southpaw off-balance and then countered effectively. “It was the finest job from any angle of boxing that this writer ever saw…and I don’t expect to see it duplicated.” Leonard walked away with a clear-cut 15 round decision.

good point on the tendler rematch, and nice quoted part too. ^^


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"The toughest fight I ever had was with Richie Mitchell in 1921. I almost lost the title then because of Arnold Rothstein, the gambler. Before the fight, Rothstein asked me whether I thought it would be a tough fight. Four years earlier I had knocked out Mitchell in seven rounds, and I told Rothstein this time I thought I could take him in one. That prospect intrigued him, and he said he could get good odds on a first-round knockout and would put $25,000 on it. He said he would give me a piece of the bet for nothing. Well, Arnie was a good friend and I didn't want to disappoint him. I also wanted to pick up some of that money, so I tore into Mitchell at the opening bell. In less than a minute, I had Mitchell down for a nine count. He got up, but I put him down again for another nine count. With a little more than a minute left, I landed a solid left hook and Mitchell crumpled again. He went down as if he could never make it up before the 10 count, but he made it at eight. I knew one more solid punch and it would be over. It came quickly, but I didn't land it. Out of nowhere, Mitchell dug a solid left to my stomach and all the air went out of me. He followed with a right to the chin and I went down. I didn't know where I was; I was in worse shape than Mitchell had been in. They tell me I got up at seven - it must have been out of instinct - and I held on till the end of the round. I finally knocked him out in the sixth. Rothstein came into the dressing room after the fight and told me he could never get the bet down...." - Benny Leonard

Great posts thank you.