Sugar Ray Leonard is one of the greatest fighters to ever grace the sport.
After capturing an Olympic Gold Medal at the 1976 Games in Montreal, Leonard entered the professional ranks and embarked on what would go on to be an outstanding career.
He captured world titles across five weight classes throughout the course of his tenure, remaining unbeaten for his first 27 outings before he was eventually beaten by Roberto Duran in 1980. He did get his revenge in their rematch just a few months later however, forcing Duran to quit in the iconic ‘No Mas’ fight to reclaim the WBC welterweight crown.
Leonard would go on to defeat both Thomas Hearns and ‘Marvelous’ Marvin Hagler in the years that followed, before he locked horns with Duran once again in 1989, defeating the Panamanian icon once again to keep a hold of his WBC super-middleweight title.
In a resurfaced interview, Hagler shared details of his 1987 showdown with Leonard, claiming that ‘Sugar Ray’ actually admitted that he believed he should not have had his hand raised.
“I think that you have to beat the champion decisively, to knock them down or knock them out. I cannot understand, how can you win a championship fight by running, how can you take a title away from the champion like that on a one point system.
He knows I whooped him, he told me himself, he said ‘Hey, you beat me’.
One thing that I found out from that night that no matter what you do, no matter what these people do, they cannot take it out of here [points to his heart], you can take away my belt, you can take away the victory from me but you cannot take what I have in my heart, knowing that I whooped this man.”
Hagler would go on to retire shortly after he was beaten by Leonard, in what was the 67th and final outing of his career. A rematch had been reportedly discussed, but never came to fruition.
