{"id":433,"date":"2026-07-04T12:51:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T12:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=433"},"modified":"2026-07-04T12:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T12:51:20","slug":"bob-arum-says-world-champion-with-85-ko-ratio-can-become-the-next-sugar-ray-leonard-skys-the-limit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=433","title":{"rendered":"Bob Arum says world champion with 85% KO ratio can become the next Sugar Ray Leonard: “Sky’s the limit”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bob<\/div>

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Bob Arum believes he has the next Sugar Ray Leonard<\/a> on his books, or at least a world champion who can become one of boxing\u2019s \u201cmajor stars\u201d.<\/p>\n

The veteran Top Rank promoter was heavily involved in Leonard\u2019s career, including his first world title reign at 147lbs.<\/p>\n

Back then, in 1979, the all-time great dethroned Wilfred Benitez with a 15th-round stoppage, before successfully defending his WBC strap against Dave \u2018Boy\u2019 Green the following year.<\/p>\n

It was then just three months later that Leonard suffered a unanimous decision defeat to Roberto Duran, who he stopped in round eight of their immediate rematch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The American subsequently remained unbeaten for the next decade, cultivating a Hall of Fame career, which promoter Arum believes WBO lightweight champion Abdullah Mason can also go on to achieve.<\/p>\n

A gritty performance against Sam Noakes saw him become the sport\u2019s youngest active male world champion, courtesy of a unanimous decision victory last November.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old, who has 17 knockouts from his 22 victories, was then supposed to defend his title against Joe Cordina this Saturday, only for his British opponent to be denied a US visa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result, Mason will instead face unbeaten contender Albert Bell at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland, Ohio, with Arum telling FightHype<\/a> that the skilful southpaw could follow in the footsteps of Leonard.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt looks like he\u2019ll be one of the major stars in boxing. He\u2019s so young \u2013 he\u2019s won a world title, but I think the sky\u2019s the limit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe comes from a very good family and he\u2019s a disciplined kid, so I\u2019m not going to worry about him going off and doing some crazy s**t.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he continues on the trajectory [he\u2019s on], he can be the next Sugar Ray Leonard.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Having previously sparred fellow Ohio native Bell on multiple occasions, the talented Mason should have a clear idea of what to expect in his maiden title defence.<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Arum believes he has the next Sugar Ray Leonard on his books, or at least a world champion who can become one of boxing\u2019s \u201cmajor stars\u201d. The veteran Top Rank promoter was heavily involved in Leonard\u2019s career, including his first world title reign at 147lbs. Back then, in 1979, the all-time great dethroned Wilfred…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn-img.boxingnewsonline.net\/uploads\/content\/1783167003885943495\/sugar-ray-leonard-boxer.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[915,914,916,920,922,917,919,921,918,40],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-arum","tag-bob","tag-champion","tag-leonard","tag-limit","tag-ratio","tag-ray","tag-skys","tag-sugar","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}