Sugar Ray Leonard is an old United states expert boxer.
He claimed the gold medal in light-welterweight boxing in the 1976 Olympic Games and gone pro the following year. His 1987 beat of “wonderful” Marvin Hagler the community Boxing Council’s middleweight name is one of the best pro boxing matches at this moment. Leonard resigned in 1997 with an archive of 36-3-1 and was actually inducted to the Boxing Hall of reputation.
Early Age
Certainly one of boxing’s most beloved and profitable fighters, Sugar Ray Leonard was born Ray Charles Leonard on 17, 1956, in Wilmington, North Carolina. The 5th of Gertha and Cicero Leonard’s seven offspring, he was named after his mom’s favored performer, Ray Charles.
Whenever Leonard was 36 months older, he and his family members gone to live in Arizona, D.C. Seven many years after, they moved to a long-term house in Palmer Park, Maryland. Leonard was raised in a loving homes, where funds were often tight. Their father generated a living as every night management at a supermarket, while Gertha worked as a nurse.
For Leonard, life is frequently tough—as a child, the guy witnessed everyday lives around him lost by criminal activity and physical violence. Several of their senior school friends died because violent crimes; many more comprise taken to prison. Leonard, however, ended up being determined to not yield to their environment.
As a sports athlete, Leonard was just marginal at group sporting events. His two earlier brothers, who’d started to engage in boxing, certain your to check out the Palmer playground society middle (their particular neighborhood fun middle) and strap on some gloves. Their lifestyle could not function as same again.
Leonard shortly 
turned obsessed with boxing, along with mastering his expertise from inside the sport. “For some reason, I wanted they to so bad,” he informed football Illustrated in 1979. “we thought it in me, and I had to continue.”
Soaring Celebrity
Leonard is quick and deft. Even more important, he was eager to learn. In 1973, the fresh fruits of their work started to pay. The guy won the state Golden Gloves that 12 months, and annually after, he had been crowned the nationwide Amateur sports Union champ.
BROWSE AFTER THAT
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“When I began, I accustomed battle like Joe Frazier,” Leonard as soon as said. “I would are available in reduced, bob and weave, and I also knocked out numerous dudes such as that. We straightened out whenever I spotted Muhammad Ali, while I began learning glucose Ray Robinson.” Leonard’s reverence for Robinson went very deep which he ultimately got the nickname “glucose Ray,” which caught.
During the period of his profitable amateur job, Leonard won three state Golden Gloves titles, two AAU championships while the 1975 Pan-American title. From the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada, he vaulted to celebrity status by conquering serious give incidents to victory the silver medal in light-welterweight (139-pound) unit.
Pro Profession
Leonard didn’t come with programs for getting a specialist boxer; he’d wished to make the most of his Olympic achievements, and do not step back from inside the band again. But family members stress, like each of his parents becoming ill, required their hand, rather than even after the Olympics, he begun combat once more.
As a professional, Leonard paired alike achievements he’d have as a beginner fighter. In November 1979, he acquired society Boxing Council’s welterweight concept, and over the following ten years, he fought in a number of of boxing’s most notable bouts, winning nearly all of those. His victories incorporated wins over Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns.
Leonard resigned in 1984, but a few age later on, in 1987, moved back in the ring to distressed “wonderful” Marvin Hagler for your middleweight top. To this day, the 1987 Leonard-Hagler fight are extensively regarded one of the greatest fights in boxing records.
Leonard resigned from boxing once and for all in 1997, finishing their professional boxing career with a 36-3-1 record and 25 knockouts. Afterwards that seasons, he was inducted in to the worldwide Boxing hallway of Fame.
Recently
Last year, Leonard sang throughout the hit ABC program dance using Stars (season 12), contending against Ralph Macchio, Wendy Williams and Hines Ward, among various other a-listers. That exact same season, he printed their memoir the major Fight: my entire life inside and out of Ring. He or she is in addition energetic in philanthropy through the Sugar Ray Leonard Foundation, which he created in 2009 along with his girlfriend Bernadette. The organization elevates resources for juvenile diabetic issues study and boost consciousness regarding the medical problem.
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