Sugar Ray Leonard

He married his childhood sweetheart Juanita Wilkinson in 1980 and couple had two children before they got separated in 1990.

He married Bernadette Robi in 1993 and currently lives with his four children and wife in Southern California.

Sugar Ray Leonard, christened as Ray Charles Leonard, was born to Cicero and Getha Leonard. He was only three when his family moved to Washington D.C. and they settled in Palmer Park, Maryland, where his father worked as a supermarket manager and his mother as a nurse.

Leonard began boxing in 1969 at the Pational Park recreation center with his elder brother Roger, who helped him train. Soon, he was trained by Dave Jacobs, a former boxer, and Janks Morton, both of whom volunteered as his boxing coaches.

In 1972, he competed in the featherweight quarterfinals of the National AAU Tournament, against boxer Jerome Artism and faced the first defeat of his career.

In 1973, he competed in the Eastern Olympic Trials where the minimum age eligibility was seventeen but Leonard, who was then sixteen, lied about his age.

He participated and won the National Golden Gloves Lightweight Championship in 1973, but was defeated by Randy Shields in the final of the National AAU Lightweight Championship, the same year.

In 1974 he earned both the National Golden Gloves and National AAU Lightweight Championship titles.

In 1976, he won an Olympic Gold Medal after an impressive 5-0 win against Kazimier Szczerba in the semifinals and another 5-0 win against Andr�s Aldama in the final round.

He defeated Wilfred Benitez on November 30, 1979 at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas in the WBC Welterweight Championship. The victory earned him a whopping $1 million and he was given the ‘Fighter of the Year’ title.

In 1981, he was named the ‘Fighter of the Year’ for the second time by ‘The Ring’ (magazine) and ‘The Boxing Writers Association of America’. He was also declared the ‘Sportsman of the Year’ by the magazine, ‘Sports Illustrated’.

In January 1997, he was inducted into the ‘International Boxing Hall Of Fame’ in Canastota, New York.

He remains the only boxer till date to have won world titles in five different weight classes.