Leonard Says He Can Beat Hagler

Just up the street from Ray Leonard Road, Sugar Ray Leonard is back in training, sparring both against fellow welterweights and a gathering line of detractors who hoped his 1984 retirement would be final.

Leonard recently surprised the boxing world with his anouncement that he would come out of retirement for a fight against world middleweight champion Marvin Hagler--if the “Marvelous” one would sign his name on a contract.

But Leonard, generally regarded as one of the finest welterweights in history, has fought just once since February 1982.

He retired as the undisputed world welterweight and junior middleweight champion in November 1982 after undergoing surgery for a detached retina in his left eye. Sugar Ray returned to the ring in May 1984 against lightly-regarded Kevin Howard, but retired for what he announced was the final time moments after he recorded an unimpressive nine round technical knockout.

Leonard, who turns 30 on May 17, has been a color commentator for televised bouts since bowing out with a 33-1 record, marred only by a June 1980 loss to Roberto Duran that was avenged six months later. Leonard has also been aching to don the trunks against Hagler, the only man of his era who may eclipse Leonard’s status in boxing history.

“I know I can beat Hagler, my way,” Leonard said recently after a one-hour sparring session at the Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing Center. “I’m not going to fight Hagler his style, if you understand what I’m saying. I will basically beat him tactically. He’s a big guy and I think I can out-box him, out-maneuver him and beat him scientifically.”

Leonard insists this is no full-scale comeback.

“All I need to fight is Marvin Hagler. My definition of a comeback is a series of fights. I don’t need that. I need one particular fight, that’s all I want,” Leonard said.

“My mind has never changed, I’ve always thought about Hagler, never deterred from the performance I had against Kevin Howard,” he added. “It should’t be a surprise to you guys. I think the fact is Hagler wants to fight me and I want to fight Hagler. If he calls, I’ll fight him.”

Leonard and his adviser, Mike Trainer, said they have not yet heard from Hagler, who was vacationing in the Caribbean when Leonard made his unexpected challenge on May 1. Boxing sources estimate both Hagler and Leonard could earn about $10 million for the fight, which Leonard said has more market value than a Halger-Thomas Hearns rematch.

Some observers are questioning whether Leonard is just another ex-champion whose ego has obscured the fact that it’s time to hang up the gloves, while others are saying that Sugar Ray has been obsessed with fighting Hagler since his first retirement.

“Ray is not going to do anything that will make a fool out of himself and he doesn’t think he’s going to do that here,” Trainer said. “Hagler is the only boxer in Ray’s era that people put in Ray’s category and he hasn’t been able to beat him. I don’t think he wants to go to his grave without trying this.”

“No, I’m not obsessed with Hagler. There’s no obsession here. He is not a fetish. He’s someone I respect a great deal, an extraordinary athlete, boxer and fighter,” Leonard insists. “He is the ultimate.”

When Leonard retired after the Howard fight, when Sugar Ray suffered the only knockdown in his professional career, he said his wife Juanita and son Ray, Jr., wanted him to quit once and for all.

But Juanita now says she supports her husband’s quest.

“He appreciates people’s concern. Everybody thinks they know what’s best for Ray. That’s why I stepped back and let him make the decision. Win or lose, he knows what he wants,” she said.

“I’m doing what I want to do. Even as far as my wife is concerned. She knows full well that I’ve wanted to fight Hagler,” Sugar Ray said. “She’s accepted the fact that I’ve made the decision that if he should call me I will fight him. Everyone’s opinionated, quite naturally, and they say, ‘Don’t do this, you shouldn’t do this, it’s crazy, it’s stupid pride.’ But I call my own shots, like I always have done in the past.”

Sugar Ray called his second retirement “a premature decision and a very emotional decision. I was very hard on myself, very critical of myself and I did it because my wife, at the time, and my kid didn’t seem at all pleased with my performance.

“Fighting Kevin Howard was not really motivating for me because he did not prove to be a challenge. He didn’t get me up, as far as getting my adrenalen flowing. I trained, quite naturally, for the fight, but I was not prepared mentally or psychologically for Kevin Howard. It was like a preliminary fight.”