Who was better, Sugar Ray Leonard or Roy Jones Jr?

[mikeeod]

I don't disagree with you guys on Ray proving his greatness and beating ridiculous competition, and I give him a great chance to beat Roy. I just think guys like Roy and Hamed were freakish enough to cause problems for anyone who ever fought. Ray had the mental toughness to will himself through hard times to victory, but Roy was very good at capitalizing on openings. Combined with Roy's punch (I feel he had more power), I see Ray struggling a bit. I could be wrong though, Ray was the definition of ATG and a special fighter.

[Master]

I don't disagree with you guys on Ray proving his greatness and beating ridiculous competition, and I give him a great chance to beat Roy. I just think guys like Roy and Hamed were freakish enough to cause problems for anyone who ever fought. Ray had the mental toughness to will himself through hard times to victory, but Roy was very good at capitalizing on openings. Combined with Roy's punch (I feel he had more power), I see Ray struggling a bit. I could be wrong though, Ray was the definition of ATG and a special fighter.

Roy was just below.

[Primo Carnera]

I don't disagree with you guys on Ray proving his greatness and beating ridiculous competition, and I give him a great chance to beat Roy. I just think guys like Roy and Hamed were freakish enough to cause problems for anyone who ever fought. Ray had the mental toughness to will himself through hard times to victory, but Roy was very good at capitalizing on openings. Combined with Roy's punch (I feel he had more power), I see Ray struggling a bit. I could be wrong though, Ray was the definition of ATG and a special fighter.

Now RJJ was a great , but Hamed is nowhere near that level. And as for causing problems for anyone ever, he didn't cause Barrera many problems, and as much as I love Barrera, he isn't at the level of the guys we're talking about.

[mikeeod]

I don't disagree with you guys on Ray proving his greatness and beating ridiculous competition, and I give him a great chance to beat Roy. I just think guys like Roy and Hamed were freakish enough to cause problems for anyone who ever fought. Ray had the mental toughness to will himself through hard times to victory, but Roy was very good at capitalizing on openings. Combined with Roy's punch (I feel he had more power), I see Ray struggling a bit. I could be wrong though, Ray was the definition of ATG and a special fighter.

Now RJJ was a great , but Hamed is nowhere near that level. And as for causing problems for anyone ever, he didn't cause Barrera many problems, and as much as I love Barrera, he isn't at the level of the guys we're talking about.

You make a very valid point on Hamed, but my question would be if you feel that the version of Hamed that MAB fought was the best, or if he had started to slip and get lazy. I tend. to view Naz as losing his edge around the Kelley fight, so that is why I see him giving great comp tough fights. I would also classify MAB as an ATG, although not at the level of Ray.

[ruthless rocco]

Hamed started to slip when started fighting real competition, not because he became lazy.

[Master]

Hamed started to slip when started fighting real competition, not because he became lazy.

Naz unified the division with ease and when he was with Ingle he was the bomb. That version would have given MAB a much harder time.

[Ron Swanson]

Roy is the most talented fighter I have ever seen and it’s really not close.

But Ray had it all. It’s possible Roy had it all in his prime and we just didn’t get to see it but....we didn’t get to see it. So we can’t assume he had the heart of SRL, the dog that SRL had in him, the ability to keep his wits when things aren’t going your way. We’ve seen a million talented fighters come apart when things start to go wrong.

We can only credit fighters for what we know they are capable of. SRL showed ya more. But we can always remember Roy as the most talented fighter we ever saw, that’s not such a bad thing to be.

[sanatogen]

Hamed started to slip when started fighting real competition, not because he became lazy.

I disagree. Hamed was on borrowed time after the kelly fight. Foundation of his success was slipping away even then.

[Mr140]

Roy was amazing fighter but his chin could be check and for Rays size at ww especially he had some real power. Not to mention Ray in his prime had one of the best chins i have ever seen man could take a hit. Hell Tommy damn near knocked his eye out and could not put him away in stead Leonard hunted him down and knocked him out. Also is this a 15 round fight or a 12 round fight because if it is 15 i am even more on Leonard taking the match then 12.

[mikeeod]

Thinking about this more and more, I feel that Roy had a distinct advantage in punching power and speed. Thinking of prime Leonard, I can’t recall him ever displaying the same type of scary power that Roy did while at 168 (and even at 175 vs Virgil Hill and Montell Griffin). Ray had some great knockouts (Hearns), but I seem to recall them being more from an accumulation of punches than one big punch.

I say all of that to say that while I still feel Roy causes some significant problems for Leonard, I have come around to thinking that Ray’s biggest advantage wouldn’t be his superior boxing skills, but his mentality and desire to be considered great. Much like his fight vs Tommy, I think Ray would need to dig deep and come from behind to score the stoppage or at least pull out the win. Where I initially viewed this as a 50/50 fight, I now tend to think Ray would win the majority of fights.

[THE THIRD MAN]

Leonard. He fought better fighters....