Sugar Ray Leonard is one of the greatest fighters to have ever laced up the gloves.
After capturing an Olympic Gold Medal at the 1976 Games in Montreal, Leonard entered the professional ranks and embarked on one of the most decorated professional careers of all time.
He stopped Wilfred Benitez in the tenth round of their showdown at the end of 1979 to capture the WBC world welterweight title, making one defence of his crown before he was eventually dethroned by Roberto Duran less than one year later.
Leonard did get his revenge in their rematch five months later however, forcing Duran to quit in the eighth round of their clash at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, in what is more commonly known as the ‘No Mas’ fight.
In the years that followed his historic victory over ‘Hands of Stone’, Sugar Ray picked up legacy defining victories over Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns, going on to face Duran in their trilogy fight in December 1989, oupointing the Panamanian icon to successfully defend his WBC super-middleweight title.
After sharing the ring with with Duran, Hearns and Hagler on at least one occasion each, Leonard was asked to reveal which of his aforementioned former rivals hit him the hardest in a feature with The Ring Magazine.
“In the first fight, Duran hurt me a number of times.”
Duran fought on 119 occasions during his career, which spanned across five decades between 1968 and 2001, making him just the second fighter in boxing history to achieve this feat. He won world titles in four divisons throughout his tenure, defeating the likes of Leonard, Iran Barkley and Ken Buchanan during this period.
