If you look at the Hearns fights, Tommy was significantly faster with single shots than leonard. He outsped him with his jab and right hand. Leonard was quick, but his footspeed and the fact that he threw so many punches in combination are what sticks in my mind about him.

People also seem to forget that boxing had a marketing machine in the 80s and Sugar Ray was the Delahoya equivalent (good looking, articulate, well-behaved). He was a great fighter, but there seems to be a tendency to just accept the hype about him without asking the same questions that modern fighters get asked. Haggler's admittedly a lot more fearsome that Baldomir but Leonard ran and stole rounds by slapping Haggler's guard in the last 30 seconds(masterful, smart boxing etc.) Mayweather employs similar tactics against Baldomir (boring, cowardly etc.)

A lot of the boxing press have a set against Mayweather. He might well be the obnoxious little turd that they make him out to be. At the end of the day, many of those guys are just subsidized fans that also have inflated ideas of their own importance with much less reason for it.