Hopkins vs Leonard & Hearns

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

milkyboy wrote:You noticed me being flippant eh Sherlock


I have my tongue fairly firmly in cheek on this place most of the time... the degree of that, and the degree of dismissiveness varies dramatically depending on who I'm debating with, and the context. The fact that I don't write IMO at the end of each sentence doesn't mean I'm passing off what I say as fact. Otherwise I'd write FACT, at the end of each sentence.

Whichever my views on this subject are nowhere near as entrenched as they probably come across. Given I've regularly debated with hagler fans who don't give an inch. You select information that suits your argument so I select some that suit mine. Has that ever been in doubt? It doesn't necessarily mean that I always believe my angle to be the correct one... sometimes its just an alternative perspective. I do believe leonard won the fight, I believe it had a few swing rounds that you could call either way, and that if you call them for hagler he wins. Close fight no robbery. That's the only opinion that's relevant. Some want to claim its a robbery, some want to say leonard was only even competitive by waiting for hagler to get old and are dismissive of the lay off and weight jump which I don't consider to be a particularly balanced argument. All of that stuff is just fluff.

If you just accepted your guy lost a close decision, and stopped making excuses for him, these debates would never have happened in the first place ... but then we wouldn't have forged a bond that only fierce combat between warriors over a lengthy period of time deliver!

Re your specific points.

You pointed out above, some obviously good sources suggesting Leonard was in shape. I'd already acknowledged that he had a long camp and trained hard. But it wouldn't reflect well on either to suggest otherwise, so i wouldn't expect them to say he was off the pace even if he was. There's being in good shape and there's being prime though. My genuine opinion is that he looked slow of foot (which I guess could just be the extra weight) and that he was blowing harder than in say the duran or hearns fights. Maybe it was the quiet beating from hagler, i wasn't astute enough to see, that made it seem that way.

My point in raising the drug issues is whether he was really able to get back to his prior shape. But of course it's all conjecture. Whilst I might query his wife as an authority on boxing scoring I'm more likely to take her view on how drunk her husband was when he slapped her around, or how many packets of white powder she found in the house. She raised it in the divorce proceedings, amongst allegations that he physically abused her when under the influence. Which is clearly unacceptable behaviour. He admitted it all from what I remember. I can't think of a good reason why he would admit things that put him in such a bad light, but of course its possible.  If he did take drugs, did it impact on this fight or his later career? Hard to say. People can make up their own minds from watching the fights. Obviously leonard was in good enough shape to win the fight. I've always stated that I felt it was two fighters both past their best.

Nope I've never met Ray, nope I haven't a degree in psychology. Its an opinion based on how open he is about trying to get an edge in his big fights... which devalues the results and his legacy in many people's eyes. My opinion is that he cares more that we think he's clever, than he does about his perceived legacy, otherwise he'd keep his mouth shut.... A significant amount of the negativity you hear on leonard is based on information he supplied us with. You think he's an ahole? Have you got a masters in ahole spotting?   Nope, just your opinion.

I'm unlikely to buy his book fella, on your recommendation that it was mediocre, the fact that i generally find auto bios a bit dull, and that I'm not actually that big a fan. Just an admirer of his boxing talent and nostalgic about the era.

Must dig out a series of articles covering hagler's career and major fights i stumbled across a while back, you haz and other fans might have read them all already, but there's some good pieces in there.

I was clean shaven when I started reading this....