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This Day in Boxing History: Sugar Ray Leonard TKO 1 Daniel Gonzalez

SRLBy Dave “Mythical” Siderski

For anyone who still doubts the punching power of Sugar Ray Leonard, I challenge you to watch the You Tube video of this fight. Coming into this fight, Sugar Ray had already beaten the likes of Willie Rodriguez, Floyd Mayweather, Randy Shields and Armando Muniz. In his 20th professional fight, he faced what was viewed to be yet another tough test in Gonzalez, who came into the bout with an impressive record of 52-2-4, 30 KO’s. The first 90 seconds of the fight were pretty uneventful with Leonard circling the ring and Gonzalez stalking.

Then, suddenly, Sugar Ray stopped in his tracks. With blinding speed, he unleashed a devastating left hook, right cross combination which sent Gonzalez to the canvas like a sack of potatoes. Gonzalez beat the count but his legs were completely shot. One final Leonard combination sent Gonzalez to the canvas again. The referee stopped the fight at the 2:03 mark of the first round. In this brief encounter 37 years ago, Sugar Ray Leonard demonstrated the unique skill sets that would ultimately make him an all-time great.

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