Sugar Ray Leonard came along at a brilliant era in boxing: he had rivalries, and great fights, with Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns, Marvin Hagler and, perhaps most of all, Robert Duran.
Duran was known as “Hands of Stone” for a reason: the guy could really hit.
In their first fight, in Montreal in 1980, Leonard fought Duran on his ground and in his style. It was a macho mistake that he would not repeat.
In the rematch, just five months later, Leonard pressed his own advantages: he was more mobile than Duran and, as it turns out, smarter.