{"id":628369,"date":"2026-06-09T00:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T00:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/628369\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T00:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T00:22:08","slug":"sugar-ray-leonard-admits-he-should-have-had-more-losses-in-legendary-four-kings-era-he-beat-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/628369\/","title":{"rendered":"Sugar Ray Leonard admits he should have had more losses in legendary Four Kings era: “He beat me”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sugar Ray Leonard<\/a> fought each of his fellow Four Kings \u2013 Marvin Hagler<\/a>, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran<\/a> \u2013 but admits he was fortunate to escape without a loss on one occasion.<\/p>\n

The first of these iconic encounters came against Duran, who pulled off a major upset to unanimously outpoint and dethrone the American in 1980.<\/p>\n

Leonard then reclaimed his WBC welterweight title in their immediate rematch, orchestrating a punishing eight-round performance to beat the Panamanian into submission.<\/p>\n

Remaining at 147lbs, the silky technician scored a 14th-round finish over Hearns<\/a> the following year, before coming out of retirement to face Hagler in 1987.<\/p>\n

Now campaigning at 160lbs, Leonard edged a contentious split decision in his only tussle with Hagler<\/a>, who was left feeling particularly aggrieved by the result of their contest.<\/p>\n

It was in his rematch with Hearns, however, where \u2018Sugar Ray\u2019 admits he deserved to suffer a second professional defeat, before losing to Terry Norris and Hector Camacho at a time when he was drastically past his best.<\/p>\n

As it happened, his rematch with Hearns resulted in a draw in 1989, when the pair agreed to collide at a catchweight of 164lbs.<\/p>\n

By this point, \u2018The Hitman\u2019 was considered past his prime but, even so,\u00a0 Leonard has told Sky Sports<\/a> that he knew the fully-fledged super-middleweight would raise his game.<\/p>\n

\u201cTommy should\u2019ve won the decision \u2013 he should\u2019ve won that fight. Everyone said Tommy was shot [past his best]. Even my camp said, \u2018One punch, he\u2019s gone\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201c[But] I\u2019m [telling] myself, \u2018When Tommy fights me, he\u2019s gonna rise to the occasion\u2019. I don\u2019t care how bad he looked, I don\u2019t care how shot he looked as a fighter \u2013 when guys fight me, they rise to the occasion. And Tommy did that.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe hurt me so many times. I knew then [that] I should\u2019ve retired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard officially retired in 1997, following his fifth-round stoppage defeat to Camacho, while Hearns finally hung up his gloves in 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sugar Ray Leonard fought each of his fellow Four Kings \u2013 Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-628369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628369","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=628369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}