Quote Originally Posted by hitmandonny View Post

I'm not having a go at Ray Robinson by any means.
the hook KO of Fulmer was magnificent, even scary, but one punch can't define a career.
I remember reading that Ray was alleged to be in his prime when moving to Middleweight.
He had a very long career and it was much later he truely started to take beatings.

From the footage I've seen of Robinson (admitedly at MW he seemed to be a fighter that was reliant on moving left, when forced right he seemed to get hit a lot, to me this suggests a weakness that could be identified and exploited by many fighters.

I won't argue that Marvin was on the slide. he hadn't looked inspiring in the Duran fight and he took a lot in the Mugabi fight, man the Hearns fight must've took its toll too!
However, i still would've picked him to beat 80% of challengers!

I know that Leonard has always claimed to have weighed 160 for that fight as he weighed in with a tracksuit pants in which he claimed to have held weights in the pockets, that is hearsay, perhaps sensationalism, but it looked to me like Lalonde enjoyed a considerable size advantage. Leonard dominated if me memory served me right

Heat prostation is essentially severe dehydration and heatstroke.
maxim was subject to the same conditions that Robinson was. The problem was that Robinson was past prime and not as well conditioned as he once had.

I'd rate Barkley highwer than you I think. I always attributed the Tommy wins to a "stylistic luxury," but at the same time I wouldn't say thats all he had.
With the size advantage and his mentality I'll bet he could work his way into a good fight there.
I mean if Turpin did
This is basically replying to a number of posts on the subject rather than this one particularly.

On comparing SRL & Hearns to SRR, I can see them as comparable, but SRR was greater.

SRL managed 40 fights in his career, whilst SRR didn't lose his 1st fight till his 41st fight against Jake LaMotta, a guaranteed HoFer, similar in context to SRL losing to Duran by fighting his fight. Both obviously won the rematches by adapting & by being better technical fighters.

At welterweight, SRR beat some of the all-time greats at the weight like LaMotta, Zivic, Armstrong, Kid Gavilan, as did SRL & Hearns, however, SRR fought 100 fights at the weight & was only bested that once by LaMotta.

You've also mentioned the Turpin fight, but he fought that having fought just 9 days previously in Italy. Can you say with certainty that SRL & Hearns would not have lost under similar circumstances. The fact he lost so little in his prime (5 times in the first 20 years of his career) despite fighting so regularly is a testament to his greatness. If we give their careers even 75% the longevity they were beaten by a similar level of fighter despite having considerably greater preparation time.

& whilst they were KO'd by Camacho & Barkley, the only KO loss of SRR's career was at LHW to Joey Maxim when he retired from heat exhaustion in a fight he was winning.

I'm not trying to underplay SRL & Hearns, I have SRL comfortably in my all-time Top 10, maybe at 5, whilst Hearns is definitely Top 20.

I just think SRR WAS greater, & even Leonard acknowledged that. I'll try dig up a link to the quote, but I believe he said 'They always tried to compare me to Sugar Ray Robinson. Believe me, there is no comparisom.'