Sugar Ray Leonard

Leonard wants Pacquiao and Mayweather to face each other

Leonard wants Pacquiao and Mayweather to face each other

Boxing star Sugar Ray Leonard thinks that it’s time WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao face each other in a mega fight. Leonard thinks it’s time the two stars get inside the ring to face each other for the sake of the fans as well as their own legacies. He sees it as an important fight for their careers.

Leonard didn’t touch on the issues that have held the two fighters back from facing each other in the past. The fight likely would have taken place long ago if the two had agreed on the blood testing that Mayweather wanted in his attempt to get a fight against Pacquiao in 2010. After that missed attempt at putting the fight together, it was pretty much over in terms of putting a fight together.

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Boxing: Five Memorable “Psych Jobs”

leonard4637Boxing is an inherently psychological undertaking. It is an activity that exposes the contestants to far more than the simple prospect of defeat: the potential combination of public humiliation and genuine physical harm percolate in a fighter’s mind to a degree that few who have not lived the experience can reasonably quantify. Far from being a mere test of physical skills then, boxing is perhaps one of the purest tests of human will power. Some of the biggest contests in boxing history have therefore been won or lost through cunning, bravery and fortitude as much as they have speed, strength and stamina.

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November 7th 1988 – Sugar Ray Leonard Vs. Donny Lalonde: “For All The Gold” – 25-years on

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It was one of the biggest and most controversial catch-weight world title fights in boxing history, and almost as soon as Sugar Ray Leonard-Donny Lalonde was announced fans wrote into top magazines such as KO and The Ring, complaining how Leonard had massively stacked the deck in his favour.

To refresh the memory of fight fans:

Leonard, at the time of November of 1988 already a three-weight world champion (welterweight, light-middleweight, middleweight), wanted more gold and to get it he persuaded Lalonde to defend his WBC light-heavyweight title against him at Caesars Palace. But there was a catch (pardon the pun!). Lalonde, a natural 175-pounder, had to drop down to the newly-created super-middleweight weight limit of 168-pounds because – in either a stroke of contractual genius or a stark example of gaining an unfair advantage – Leonard had seen to it that the newly-gilded WBC 168-pound strap would also be on the line.

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All Time Historical Survey Series Recap – The Original 8 Weight Classes & P4P

All Time Historical Survey Series Recap – The Original 8 Weight Classes & P4P

by Geoffrey Ciani – Over the course of a sixteen month period beginning in June 2009, I conducted a series of surveys that all began with a very simple question: Who are the ten best heavyweights of all time? While contemplating my own list of top heavyweight pugilists, I decided gathering the input of others might help display a more accurate portrayal of what a ‘true’ top 10 list should look like. Now of course this is not an exact science by any means. In fact, quite the opposite, it is an extremely subjective topic that is often skewed by personal bias, differences of opinion, individual tastes and preferences, and most importantly the absence of a universally agreed upon criteria with which to judge past fighters. Even with these inherent obstacles playing their natural role, however, we can still establish some degree of consensus.

The guidelines were simple. I had every person who voluntarily participated in each survey provide me with a chronological list of who they considered to be the ten best (heavyweights, middleweights, etc) in boxing history. Ties were not permitted, just a straight-forward list from one to ten. I then used a weighted-points system to assign values to fighters based on where they appeared on each individual’s list. First place votes received 25 points. Second place votes were worth 15 points, third place votes were 12, and fourth and fifth place votes were worth 10 and 8 points respectively. After that, the point differential was constant, with sixth place votes getting 5 points, seventh place votes getting 4, eighth getting 3, ninth place 2, and tenth place 1.

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