Sugar Ray Leonard

Diagnoses

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

Traits

Family

American boxer, the Olympic Gold Medal welterweight champion in 1976 at Montreal. Leonard won the World Welterweight title over Wilfred Benitez, Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns. On 4/06/1987, Leonard made his second boxing comeback by defeating Marvin Hagler for the middle-weight world championship. Hagler had been unbeaten for more than a decade and Sugar-Ray won the championship by a decision in a stirring, heroic fight. Leonard won world titles in five weight divisions, though he suffered long, dry spells between his fights. In 1981, he sustained a torn retina during a 14-round come-from-behind KO victory against Thomas Hearns. His eye injury forced him into early retirement in 1981 and he underwent retinal eye surgery the following year. On 5/11/1984, Leonard received damage in his good eye while training for his first comeback attempt against Kevin Howard that was not impressive. In the fight, Leonard was knocked down in the fight and had to struggle that evening to win the match. In 1984, he announced his second retirement. By 1987, he had 33 wins, 1 loss and 24 KOs. After a bitter divorce from first his wife, Juanita, in 1990, he made a second marriage. Their sons Ray Jr. and Jarrel were born in 1973 and 1984. He runs his own business called Sugar Ray Leonard's Boxing Management. He trains the new up-and-coming boxers to the ring. He campaigns for the anti-drug, anti-violence program D.A.R.E. for grades K-12. In his boxing company all fighters must give part of the purse to helping kids in the D.A.R.E. program. He spends his time visiting students in public school teaching them to "dream big and work hard." Supplementing his career with TV commercials and sports casting, he prudently invested his $100 million earnings from boxing in order to live comfortably in Brentwood, CA. He went into retirement five times before staying away from the ring in 1997, running Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing, Inc. which stages monthly fights on ESPN. Still in shape and with the same famous grin that lights up the room, in 2001 he lived in Pacific Palisades with his wife of eight years, former model Bernadette Robi and their daughter Camille, four, and son Daniel, age one. Link to Wikipedia biography