Thurman-Garcia Broadcast Adds Sugar Ray Leonard

By FIGHTSPORTS Feb 28, 2017

Boxing Hall of Famer and former undisputed welterweight world champion Sugar Ray Leonard will join the broadcast team on Saturday, March 4 for Garcia vs. Thurman.

The event will be headlined by the welterweight world championship unification bout between undefeated champions Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman. GARCIA vs. THURMAN is presented by Premier Boxing Champions and will take place at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, home of BROOKLYN BOXING.

With boxing analyst and active prizefighter Paul Malignaggi scheduled to fight in London that evening, the broadcast seat opened up for Leonard. He will join host Brian Custer, play-by-play voice Mauro Ranallo, International Boxing Hall of Fame analyst Al Bernstein and Sports Emmy® Award-winning reporter Jim Gray on Saturday.

Leonard made his professional boxing debut on CBS in 1977, less than one year after he won gold at the ‘76 Olympics in Montreal as part of what is considered the greatest American boxing team in Olympic history. He served as a boxing analyst for the network in the early 1980s during a temporary retirement, calling fights alongside CBS boxing announcer Tim Ryan and Hall of Fame trainer and analyst Gil Clancy, before eventually resuming his professional boxing career.

A five-division titlist and one of the most decorated boxers of all-time, Leonard brings unique perspective to the broadcast booth having been in a similar situation to Thurman and Garcia more than 35 years ago. Garcia, the WBC 147-pound titleholder, and Thurman, his WBA counterpart, will unify the exact same titles that Leonard (WBC) and fellow Hall of Famer Thomas Hearns (WBA) unified in their classic 1981 Fight of the Year.

Heading into the March 4 unification, Garcia and Thurman own similar records to those of Leonard and Hearns prior to their ‘81 showdown. Thurman is 27-0 and Garcia is 33-0, while Leonard was 30-1 and Hearns was 32-0. And like Leonard and Hearns, Thurman and Garcia are in their 20’s and their respective primes as they approach the career-defining fight.