On March 28, 1981, Sugar Ray Leonard made his first defense of the WBC welterweight title against Larry Bonds at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York.

Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns II, billed as The War, was a professional boxing match contested on June 12, 1989, for the WBC and WBO super middleweight titles. In January 1989, promoter Bob Arum announced the long-awaited rematch between reigning WBC super middleweight monarch "Sugar" Ray Leonard and reigning WBO super middleweight champion Thomas Hearns. The two fighters had met previously nearly 8 years before with Leonard rallying in the 14th round to defeat Hearns by technical knockout after trailing on all three of the judge's scorecards. Both Leonard and Hearns had become five-division champions in their previous fights with Leonard capturing both the WBC light heavyweight and super middleweight after defeating Donny Lalonde on November 7, 1988, while Hearns had won the WBO super middleweight only three days before, after earning a close majority decision against James Kinchen. Leonard then vacated his light heavyweight title, deciding to stay in the super middleweight division. Leonard and Hearns agreed to fight at a catch-weight of 164 pounds rather than the 168-pound super middleweight limit. A $500,000 per pound fine was to be paid by one fighter to the other should either come into the fight above the catch-weight, though this turned out to not be an issue as Leonard weighed 160 pounds and Hearns came into the fight at 162. On the day of the fight, Hearns' younger brother Henry was arrested for the shooting death of his girlfriend at a house Thomas owned in Detroit. Promoter Bob Arum went to the hotel Hearns was staying at to check on him and told the press "Tommy was angry at me for coming by and he said to me: This is not going to affect me. Look, I’m here to do a job--I’ve been waiting eight years to knock this guy out.