{"id":673637,"date":"2026-07-04T16:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T16:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/673637\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T16:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T16:05:09","slug":"bob-arum-says-world-champion-with-85-ko-ratio-can-become-the-next-sugar-ray-leonard-skys-the-limit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/673637\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Arum says world champion with 85% KO ratio can become the next Sugar Ray Leonard: “Sky’s the limit”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob Arum believes he has the next Sugar Ray Leonard<\/a> on his books, or at least a world champion who can become one of boxing\u2019s \u201cmajor stars\u201d.<\/p>\n

The veteran Top Rank promoter was heavily involved in Leonard\u2019s career, including his first world title reign at 147lbs.<\/p>\n

Back then, in 1979, the all-time great dethroned Wilfred Benitez with a 15th-round stoppage, before successfully defending his WBC strap against Dave \u2018Boy\u2019 Green the following year.<\/p>\n

It was then just three months later that Leonard suffered a unanimous decision defeat to Roberto Duran, who he stopped in round eight of their immediate rematch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The American subsequently remained unbeaten for the next decade, cultivating a Hall of Fame career, which promoter Arum believes WBO lightweight champion Abdullah Mason can also go on to achieve.<\/p>\n

A gritty performance against Sam Noakes saw him become the sport\u2019s youngest active male world champion, courtesy of a unanimous decision victory last November.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old, who has 17 knockouts from his 22 victories, was then supposed to defend his title against Joe Cordina this Saturday, only for his British opponent to be denied a US visa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result, Mason will instead face unbeaten contender Albert Bell at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland, Ohio, with Arum telling FightHype<\/a> that the skilful southpaw could follow in the footsteps of Leonard.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like he\u2019ll be one of the major stars in boxing. He\u2019s so young \u2013 he\u2019s won a world title, but I think the sky\u2019s the limit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe comes from a very good family and he\u2019s a disciplined kid, so I\u2019m not going to worry about him going off and doing some crazy s**t.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he continues on the trajectory [he\u2019s on], he can be the next Sugar Ray Leonard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having previously sparred fellow Ohio native Bell on multiple occasions, the talented Mason should have a clear idea of what to expect in his maiden title defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bob Arum believes he has the next Sugar Ray Leonard on his books, or at least a world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-673637","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\/673637","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=673637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}