Leonard Says He’d End Retirement to Fight Hagler

Sugar Ray Leonard said Thursday he would end his two-year retirement from boxing if middleweight champion Marvin Hagler agrees to a title fight.

“I know exactly what it takes to beat this man,” Leonard told WDVM-TV. “But people say, ‘Well, Ray, two years of inactivity, you’ll be rusty.’ No, no. He will eliminate the rust because he is what I want and I am what he wants. And boxing needs that kind of fight.”

Leonard retired as the undisputed world welterweight and junior-middleweight champion in November 1982 after undergoing surgery to correct a partially detached retina six months earlier.

He returned to the ring on May 11, 1984, posting an unimpressive nine-round technical knockout of unheralded Kevin Howard, a fight during which he suffered the only knockdown of his career.