Leonard, Sugar Ray

orig. Ray Charles Leonard

born May 17, 1956, Rocky Mount, N.C., U.S.

U.S. welterweight and middleweight boxer.

Leonard was an outstanding amateur, winning 145 of 150 bouts, including a 1976 Olympic championship. He turned professional in 1977 and gained the world welterweight title in 1979 by defeating Wilfred Benítez. He lost the title to Roberto Duran in 1980 but recaptured it from him later that year. He retired in the early 1980s with a detached retina but made a comeback in 1984. In 1987 he went into the ring as a middleweight to defeat Marvin Hagler in one of boxing's great matches. He retired again in 1991. He was resoundingly defeated in a final comeback attempt in 1997. Known for his agility and finesse, he won 36 of his 39 professional matches. He later became a television commentator.

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▪ American boxer and television commentator

byname of  Ray Charles Leonard 

born May 17, 1956, Rocky Mount, North Carolina, U.S.

 

 American boxer, known for his agility and finesse, who won 36 of 40 professional matches and several national titles. As an amateur, he took an Olympic gold medal in the light-welterweight class at the 1976 Games in Montreal.

      By his mid-teens Leonard proved adept at boxing, and, as an amateur, he won 145 of 150 bouts and garnered two National Golden Glove championships (1973, 1974), two Amateur Athletic Union championships (1974, 1975), and a gold medal at the 1975 Pan American Games. Following his Olympic victory in 1976, he announced his retirement from the sport but reentered the ring as a professional on February 5, 1977.

      In November 1979 Leonard defeated the reigning World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight champion, Wilfred Benítez, only to lose the title in June 1980 in a famous match against Roberto Durán. Five months later Leonard regained the title by defeating Durán, and he successfully defended it thereafter, winning the World Boxing Association (WBA) version of the title with a victory over Thomas Hearns in 1981. Earlier that same year he had won the WBA junior-middleweight title with a ninth-round knockout of Ayub Kalule.

      Leonard retired from prizefighting in 1982 and again in 1984 but was enticed to return in April 1987 to face the up-and-coming Marvelous Marvin Hagler (Hagler, Marvin), whom he defeated to capture the WBC middleweight title in what was considered one of the greatest professional boxing matches of all time.

      Leonard retired again in 1991 after losing a WBC super welterweight title bout, but he returned to the ring once more in 1997, at age 40, and lost by a fifth-round technical knockout. He retired after the fight and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame later that year. After his final retirement, Leonard served as a boxing commentator and television host.

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