{"id":269726,"date":"2025-07-17T16:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T16:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/269726\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T16:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T16:11:09","slug":"teddy-atlas-has-no-doubt-who-was-the-best-fighter-from-4-kings-duran-leonard-hagler-and-hearns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/269726\/","title":{"rendered":"Teddy Atlas Has No Doubt Who Was The Best Fighter From 4 Kings Duran, Leonard, Hagler And Hearns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns defined an unparalleled era of skill, grit and drama in the sport of boxing.<\/p>\n

They each faced off on at least one occasion<\/a>, often more, with Leonard the only man to beat all three. Duran claimed only one victory against Leonard \u2013 though was beaten twice in their trilogy \u2013 and lost to Hagler and Hearns as a naturally smaller man.<\/p>\n

Hagler beat Hearns and Duran but was defeated on a controversial decision against Leonard. Finally, Hearns lost to Leonard in their first bout and only managed a draw on the scorecards in the rematch, though again many felt he did enough to win. \u2018The Hitman\u2019 stopped Duran in the second round when they faced off.<\/p>\n

When it comes down to the skillsets of each man and what they achieved in the ring, famed trainer turned analyst Teddy Atlas believes just two are worthy of his all-time pound-for-pound list. At number ten, he places Duran.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cHe was a great lightweight, and then he upset the world by winning the welterweight title. I\u2019m sorry he\u2019s not higher on the list.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One man who is higher, by just one spot to be exact, is Leonard, who Atlas said is worthy of being named Sugar Ray after his number two pick, Sugar Ray Robinson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIf you can take the \u2018Sugar Ray\u2019 name and get away with it, without embarrassing the name, and he did. He made us think of another Sugar Ray.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Outside of the Four Kings, Sugar Ray scored major victories over undefeated Wilfred Benitez to win his first world title, Ayub Kalule to claim the super welterweight crown and Donny Lalonde in a two-title bout that earned him belts at super middleweight and light heavyweight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns defined an unparalleled era of skill, grit and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-269726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114869455076558433","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}