{"id":164015,"date":"2025-09-27T15:13:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T15:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/164015\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T15:13:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T15:13:06","slug":"sugar-ray-leonard-singles-out-world-champion-rival-as-the-best-he-ever-faced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/164015\/","title":{"rendered":"Sugar Ray Leonard Singles Out World Champion Rival As The Best He Ever Faced"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the eyes of many, Sugar Ray Leonard<\/a> is one of the greatest fighters to have ever graced the sport of boxing.<\/p>\n

The North Carolina-native made his professional debut back in 1977, just months on from his success at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, which he walked away from with a Light-Welterweight Gold Medal.<\/p>\n

Leonard would go on to win world titles across five weight classes throughout the course of his 20-year professional career, as well as capturing the undisputed welterweight championship in 1981.<\/p>\n

He became a member of the iconic \u2018Four Kings\u2019 during the 1980s alongside former rivals Thomas Hearns<\/a>, Marvelous Marvin Hagler<\/a> and Roberto Duran<\/a>, racking up victories over each of this legendary trio during his tenure.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Ring Magazine in a round of \u2018Best I Faced\u2019, Leonard made no mistake in naming countryman Hearns as the best overall fighter that he ever faced, having shared the ring with \u2018The Hitman\u2019 on two occasions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was Tommy [Hearns]. I don\u2019t think anything matches our first fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard and Hearns clashed for the first time back in September 1981<\/a>, a memorable contest that ended with \u2018The Hitman\u2019 suffering a 14th round stoppage defeat to Leonard, who became the undisputed champion at 147lbs in the process.<\/p>\n

Their rematch came four years after their first encounter, and after another all-action showdown between the legendary American duo, the bout was declared a split decision draw as both fighters successfully retained their super-middleweight world titles.<\/p>\n

It has been argued that \u2018The Hitman\u2019 should have had his hand raised in their rematch, a debate that has captured the attention of boxing fans and critics for many years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the eyes of many, Sugar Ray Leonard is one of the greatest fighters to have ever graced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-164015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}