An evening with Sugar Ray Leonard

Just seen this on FACEBOOK

Sunday March 15th at Stirk House Hotel, Gisburn, Lancashire, BB7 4LJ

www.mareepromotions.co.uk

Ticket apparently includes a guaranteed meet and greet with Ray, Sunday dinner then sit back and blah blah blah

I'm not going, don't wanna be a Hagler heckler, but some of you may be interested.

Apologies to the Mods if I've breached any rules re advertising and promotions etc. I'm in no way affiliated with this organization or the Hotel mentioned.... if I was, you'd see an ad for the Rachel Cordingley topless calendar

Have been to a few of these and Leonard was very much one of the better ones (as was Johnny Nelson surprisingly). Articulate, amusing and approachable enough with regard to signing stuff and glad handing folk.

When it came time for the Q&A the first question was would he beat Mayweather? After turning round to the organiser and saying told you so, his response was "I fought his father, all I can say is like father like son" Am sure it is a well rehearsed and tried and tested script but he delivers it a damned sight better than many boxers who do these nights.

Better value than Eddie Hearn looking for £200 for a photograph.

Strongback wrote:Better value than Eddie Hearn looking for £200 for a photograph.

You may moan but it's all supply and demand old boy. And you have 4 of them, one in each room of your house.

Coxy001 wrote:

Strongback wrote:Better value than Eddie Hearn looking for £200 for a photograph.

You may moan but it's all supply and demand old boy. And you have 4 of them, one in each room of your house.

I was complimenting the value for money to be had in going to see a real boxing legend in Ray.

Leonard did it the right way and talent not nepiticism rose to the top.

Strongback wrote:Leonard did it the right way and talent not nepiticism rose to the top

You mean 'Nepotism' but I do agree with you

Would have loved to get to this but it coincides with some unfortunate family business. Probably the one fighter I'd want to go to one of these gigs for more than any other.

Did anyone else read Leonard's autobiography a couple of years back? Fittingly conceited and self-congratulatory in parts, but delivered with enough of a twinkle for him to get away with it. Just. Pretty good read though, I felt. If he wasn't a straight talker in his career he's definitely become one in his retirement. He was certainly a bit of a boy back in the day.

Wonder how his career would be remembered if he'd not been out the ring for five years for all intents and purposes between 1982 and 1987. Maybe he'd have lost a Hearns rematch at 154, maybe he'd have tried taking on Hagler a bit earlier and got beaten for his troubles etc and he'd not be remembered as fondly. Or maybe he still beats them along with Pryor and McCallum and gets mightily close to nicking Robinson's status as the greatest Sugar Ray.

One of the greatest talents to set foot in a ring, though.

Hard to say chris, I wonder how he'd be remembered if he'd quit for good after the hagler fight and not done the grandad tour... it doesn't seem to have hurt his legacy much but it certainly hasn't helped

.....and he did it all without any neopolitanism

How does he get on against those guys? Well you can make a case either way on most of them.

I can't see him losing to pryor at welter.

I don't think making the weight was an issue for him, but if we assume he settled at 154 for a bit. I don't think he looked his best, even prime there against kalule (though kalule was awkward, unbeaten and a very good fighter). Applying the rematch rule, ie the psychological advantage i guess he starts marginal favourite against tommy, but tommy did look fanatastic at the weight. Pickem really.

McCallum. Great as mike was he could be outboxed and leonard proved he was tough as nails, so on a styles match-up i err to leonard on points in this one even if it is mike's best weight.

Hagler. I'd always assumed this would be a bridge too far for leonard, but then i thought it was going to be when they did actually fight. Assuming they're both prime still, I'm going with hagler, but not with a lot of conviction.

milkyboy wrote:.....and he did it all without any neopolitanism.

Don't see what ice cream has to do with anything, milky. But whatever.

Agree with most of what you've put, really. Pryor's become almost some kind of boogey man to Leonard based on a lot of exaggerations and myths. Not saying it's a cakewalk for Leonard but would back him to beat Pryor handily enough, probably stopping him late on.

I tend to see things a bit differently than most when it comes to Leonard as a Light-Middle, or at least I give him a bit more leeway. I rate his performance against Kalule a bit higher than most others seem to (not one of his greatest showings, but I don't think it was the big struggle that others do) and I feel the Howard fight was more reflective of a guy who was ring-rusty after a two year lay off and who was basically having that fight for the sake of staving off boredom and the nasty vices of the high life.

I think the Howard fight is a red herring in that sense, I guess. So I don't tend to row with the idea that Leonard as a Light-Middle clearly lost a bit of his magic and didn't have the potential to be that same beast as he'd been as a Welter purely on the basis of one significant fight against Kalule, which again I thought was still a good performance with a bit of Leonard magic in it anyway. He may have suited Welter better but if he'd had a few more fights in his peak years at 154 I think he'd have gone on to show he was still pretty special at that weight, too.

With that in mind I'd back him to beat McCallum. Nobody's getting knocked out in that one but I can see Leonard coming through on points if he approaches it in a similar way to the Hagler fight (although against a smaller, less explosive guy than Marvin I imagine Ray would have been a bit more willing to plant his feet and make sure the decision wasn't a questionable one, as well as ). Outside ability, speed and elusiveness tended to beat or at least trouble McCallum so you'd think a guy like Leonard would have all the physical attributes as well as the ring smarts to topple Mike. Might be interesting if Leonard did opt / was forced in to having a bit more of a ruck with a body and in-close counter puncher of McCallum's class, though, ala the Kalule fight.

Hagler at 160 around 1984/85....I'd edge towards Marvelous but it's not a done deal. Hagler was deteriorated by 1987, but so was Leonard. Hagler would have been able to chase harder, cut off the ring more effectively and land with more venom a few years before, just as Leonard could potentially have danced even quicker, countered more sharply and sat on his shots a bit more himself. But I suspect peak Hagler's bleak single-mindedness which he had for just about every fight from Minter onwards to Mugabi, the puzzling Duran one aside, wouldn't allow himself to mentally mess the whole thing up like he did when he eventually did fight Leonard. I still think it's a mightly close one but I'd go with Hagler six times out of ten to win on the cards.

88Chris05 wrote:Probably the one fighter I'd want to go to one of these gigs for more than any other.

As I said Chris one of the better ones I have attended. Duran was also pretty good, but all done through a translator. Someone asked him who he enjoyed hitting the most. You can all pretty much guess his response!

I think if leonard last's the distance with marv, it would most likely always be close. He had a good chin and plenty of heart to go with the ability, so nothing to suggest he wouldn't last 12 other than hagler's sheer relentlessness in the early-mid 80's. I find myself watching hagler destoy hearns etc and think how does leonard survive that? Then watch hagler duran and think, maybe it's not so hard to imagine.

like leonard, hagler never benefitted from napoleonism either.

Rowley wrote:

88Chris05 wrote:Probably the one fighter I'd want to go to one of these gigs for more than any other.

As I said Chris one of the better ones I have attended. Duran was also pretty good, but all done through a translator. Someone asked him who he enjoyed hitting the most. You can all pretty much guess his response!

his horse?

I can imagine, Jeff. Like Leonard says, he's asked Duran in the past if he really did hate him back then. Apparently Duran said something along the lines on, "No, I was only joking around, I just wanted your title." Leonard said to this day he still doesn't believe him.

Duran more than any other boxer used to look down on his opponents with disdain and scorn, but those close to him say that nobody ever riled him up like Leonard did for whatever reason - even Benitez, despite the fact that Benitez got lippy and aggressive towards Duran and fought fire with fire in that sense, whereas Leonard always tried to just rise above it and pass it of as if he didn't care (although as he, Dundee and arguably his performance in Montreal confirmed afterwards, he did).

Odd that Duran saw Leonard as so much of a protected golden egg whose rise to stardom had been guaranteed by corporate men and carefully manufactured in the ring. His maiden world title fight was against a peak, undefeated Benitez! God only know what Duran would have made of subsequent American Olympic gold winners such as Tate, Breland and De la Hoya getting their first title shots against Olajide, Volbrecht and Bredahl respectively!

Olajide, Volbrecht and Bredahl

Sounds like someone out of Lord of the Rings.

milkyboy wrote:Hard to say chris, I wonder how he'd be remembered if he'd quit for good after the hagler fight and not done the grandad tour... it doesn't seem to have hurt his legacy much but it certainly hasn't helped

.....and he did it all without any neopolitanism

How does he get on against those guys? Well you can make a case either way on most of them.

I can't see him losing to pryor at welter.

I don't think making the weight was an issue for him, but if we assume he settled at 154 for a bit. I don't think he looked his best, even prime there against kalule (though kalule was awkward, unbeaten and a very good fighter). Applying the rematch rule, ie the psychological advantage i guess he starts marginal favourite against tommy, but tommy did look fanatastic at the weight. Pickem really.

McCallum. Great as mike was he could be outboxed and leonard proved he was tough as nails, so on a styles match-up i err to leonard on points in this one even if it is mike's best weight.

Hagler. I'd always assumed this would be a bridge too far for leonard, but then i thought it was going to be when they did actually fight. Assuming they're both prime still, I'm going with hagler, but not with a lot of conviction.

I agree about the Hagler Leonard fight.............Hagler had an inferiority complex when it came to Duran and Leonard...The media saying he was a ferocious brawler while saying Duran and Leonard were cunning fighters didn't help !!

Hagler nearly got outsmarted by Duran trying to show he could box...............Got outsmarted by Leonard and outsmarted himself against Vito.....

If Hagler was himself I'd pick him to beat Leonard comfortably...............But I imagine he'd want to prove something to Leonard !!

Leonard decision..

If Leonard hadn't retired and moved up to 154lbs, I wonder how he would have faired with the Don Curry who demolished Milton McCrory?

Can't see Curry dishing out the boxing lesson he gave to McCallum before the lottery punch.