LAS VEGAS -- Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns hit upon a core truth in comparing their 1981 welterweight classic to tonight’s Floyd Mayweather-Shane Mosley fight.
They were welterweights at the beginning of their careers, fighting each other at their lightest career weights and in their youthful primes, while Mayweather and Mosley are several years older and have progressed through multiple weight divisions.
As such, it is unfair to compare tonight’s fight, and its contestants, to them.
“I think that Floyd would’ve been really too small for us,” Hearns said. “We were big welterweights. Floyd’s small. He’s a small guy. I’m not saying, because he’s small, he wouldn’t be able to do anything, but we would’ve made it very difficult. Anytime you’ve got to keep punching up to hit somebody, not hit somebody at your own level, it’s difficult.”
Both men said they give Mayweather the advantage.
“I think it’ll be a chess match, with Mayweather being the counterpuncher until he recognizes that Mosley isn’t what he used to be. Good fight,” Leonard said.
Leonard was 25 and Hearns 22 when they met as undefeated champions in a welterweight unification at Caesars Palace.
Hearns held comfortable leads on all three scorecards when Leonard rallied to stop him in the 14th round of one of the last major 15-round fights.
Hearns went on to fight as heavy as cruiserweight -- the 190-pound division -- while Leonard’s heaviest class was super middleweight, the 168-pound limit.
Mayweather started as a 130-pounder, and Mosley as a 135-pounder, which makes the comparison as patently unfair to them as when Roberto Duran -- who started his career at 135 -- is lumped into his usual chronological comparison with Hearns, Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler, all of whom were naturally bigger.
Still, Mayweather-Mosley is a great matchup and considered the best 147-pound matchup since Leonard-Hearns, even if it may not rank among the top 10 welterweight bouts in history.
The same could be said for Leonard-Hearns II in 1989, which was a thriller ending in a spurious draw -- even Leonard, today, admits Hearns won -- but does not rank among the greatest middleweight bouts ever.
“This fight here, between Sugar Shane Mosley and Mayweather, it’s going to be a good fight,” Hearns said. “But I don’t see it matching Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns. I may be a little partial because it was our fight but I just don’t see them doing the same thing.
“Our fight has been talked about for decades and decades. We just set the standard and it’s kind of hard to top what we did.”
Hearns said he thinks Mayweather should “do well” by trying to “come out and dominate the fight by using his ability to move, to be able to throw slick punches.”
“But I think Shane, somewhere down the line, Shane is going to try to test him, and see how well he takes a shot,” Hearns said. “We have yet to see how well he takes a shot yet.”
Leonard said he had a “premonition” that there will be a knockdown.
“I know that most people lean towards Floyd Mayweather Jr.,” he said, “and rightfully so, so am I, I give him the edge, maybe because I don’t think you can fault his success, he’s 40-0, and I have yet to see him hurt, knocked down, or whatever. But on the other hand, I see Shane Mosley as a guy who can penetrate the defense of Mayweather, because no one’s been able to penetrate that defense.”
E-mail David Mayo: dmayo@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/David_Mayo
| Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns preview Mayweather-Mosley |
Source: mlive.com
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