{"id":763250,"date":"2026-09-07T21:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T21:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/763250\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T21:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T21:02:10","slug":"sugar-ray-leonard-says-one-of-the-four-kings-hurt-him-so-bad-he-shouldve-retired-after-the-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/763250\/","title":{"rendered":"Sugar Ray Leonard says one of the Four Kings hurt him so bad he should’ve retired after the fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sugar Ray Leonard<\/a> mixed it with the very best, including each of his fellow Four Kings, but admits he should have retired after encountering the ferocious fists of one man.<\/p>\n

The American officially called time on his Hall of Fame career in 1997, having returned from a six-year absence and suffered a fifth-round stoppage defeat to Hector Camacho.<\/p>\n

Prior to that, Leonard lost a unanimous decision to Terry Norris, but was evidently competing at a time when he no longer possessed his physical attributes of old.<\/p>\n

Instead, his prime years lasted between 1979 and 1981, when he established himself as the top dog at 147lbs with iconic wins over Wilfred Benitez, Roberto Duran and Tommy Hearns.<\/p>\n

After losing his first encounter with Duran, Leonard won their rematch by eighth-round stoppage, before defending his WBC title with a 14th-round finish over Hearns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sugar then entered a rematch with \u2018The Hitman\u2019<\/a> in 1989, only to suffer two knockdowns and come away with a highly controversial draw.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Sky Sports<\/a>, he admitted this was the night he should have hung up his gloves.<\/p>\n

\u201cTommy should\u2019ve won the decision. Everyone said Tommy [was] shot; even my camp said, \u2018One punch, he\u2019s gone\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to myself: When Tommy fights me, he\u2019s gonna rise to the occasion. And Tommy did that, and he hurt me so many times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I should\u2019ve retired after the Hearns fight, [or] even after the [Marvin] Hagler fight. Tommy [is] a sweetheart but, when he\u2019s in the ring, he is a killer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Leonard\u2019s middleweight clash with Hagler resulted in a controversial split decision, with many believing he was fortunate to emerge victorious in 1987.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sugar Ray Leonard mixed it with the very best, including each of his fellow Four Kings, but admits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-763250","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\/763250","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=763250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}