A former rival of Sugar Ray Leonard once made a sensational claim about the Hall of Fame great.
The North Carolina-native enjoyed considerable success throughout the course of his 20-year professional career, which began shortly after he walked away from the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Montreal with a light-welterweight gold medal.
Leonard would go on to become a world champion in five weight classes along the way, suffering just three defeats before his career came to an end after he was beaten by the late-great Hector Camacho in March 1997.
Perhaps the bulk of his success came during the 1980s where he would become a member of ‘The Four Kings’ alongside Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran, a legendary quarter of fighters that took the sport by storm during that golden era.
In a resurfaced interview, Hagler made a shock admission about Leonard following their controversial meeting back in 1987, as he claims his fellow countryman was not a ‘real champion’.
“As a matter of fact I told him that I’d even fight him in his living room because he wanted everything – he wanted the bigger ring, he wanted bigger gloves, I mean, come on! Do you want to fight, yes or no? I had been waiting like four years for this guy.
“I feel as though I won the fight and I feel as though that I don’t think there’s any way in the world that you can beat the champion on a close fight decision.
“I’ll tell you something – I came out of that ring with not a scratch on me for the first time out of any of the tough guys that I fought, and I felt that anyone of those guys that fought me, they had the ability and the opportunity to become champion of the world.
“It just showed me that he wasn’t really a champion because a real champion would have gave me a rematch just to show the public that it wasn’t right.
“If it was me, and the shoe was on the other foot, I automatically felt as though that if you felt as though you got a raw deal, “Okay, let’s do it again!” That’s the way that a real champion is about. Today, you don’t got these real champions.”
Leonard defeated Hagler via split decision when they clashed for the latter’s WBC middleweight title back in April of 1987, although it has been argued by analysts that ‘Sugar Ray’ was not the deserving winner.
There had been talks about a rematch between the legendary duo taking place, but this did not come to fruition. Hagler would go on to retire from the sport after he revealed he was tired of waiting for Leonard to agree to a second encounter. On how Leonard compared to his other opponents, Hagler said:
“I will give Duran, I will give Tommy Hearns, and I will give Mugabi the more respect because these guys came to take away my title. Not like a Leonard who ran like a little girl – excuse my language, I’m sorry.”
