WASHINGTON -- Sugar Ray Leonard and light heavyweight champion Don Lalonde have tentatively agreed to a fight that could make Leonard the first boxer ever to win titles in five different weight categories, Lalonde's attorney confirmed Wednesday.
Leonard's attorney met Tuesday in Los Angeles with Norm Kaplan, Lalonde's attorney, and they came to terms on the details of the fight at around midnight, Kaplan said.
'Tentatively, yes, we've come to terms,' said Kaplan, who would not discuss details.
A formal contract is expected to be signed Thursday when Leonard and Lalonde hold a joint news conference in Washington, Kaplan said.
Both camps said earlier negotiations were centering on a bout as early as November. Kaplan said no site for the fight has been set.
Lalonde will risk his World Boxing Council light heavyweight title (175 pounds) as part of the agreement to fight for the WBC's newly formed 168-pound super middleweight division.
Leonard, who has held the world welterweight, junior middleweight and middleweight crowns, would simultaneously capture his fourth and fifth titles if he defeats Lalonde, a hard-hitting 28-year-old Canadian who is 31-2 with 26 knockouts.
No boxer has ever gained titles in five weight classes, but Thomas Hearns has done so in four: welterweight, junior middleweight, middleweight and light heavyweight.
Promoter Bob Arum announced Wednesday that Hearns will go for his fifth world title against World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Fulgencio Obelmejias in October. Since Lalonde and Leonard are not expected to meet before November, Hearns could beat Leonard to a fifth title.
Leonard, 32, a natural welterweight, last fought in April 1987 when he ended a three-year retirement and stunned Marvelous Marvin Hagler for the undisputed middleweight title. He will be coming out of retirement a third time.
On July 19, the WBC executive committee in Mexico City approved a possible fight between Leonard and Lalonde for the new weight class. Boxing's other two sanctioning bodies, the World Boxing Association and the International Boxing Federation, already have super middleweight divisions.
Leonard, 34-1, of Potomac, Md., won a gold medal for the United States in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. He has fought only twice since his initial retirement from boxing in November 1982 as undisputed world welterweight (147-pound) and junior middleweight (154-pound) champion.
His first retirement came after undergoing surgery for a detached retina in his left eye. Leonard fought in May 1984, but immediately retired again after an uninspired victory over unheralded Kevin Howard. He came out of retirement to fight Hagler, then retired again.
Lalonde, of Winnipeg, Manitoba, captured the WBC light heavyweight crown last November and has defended it once.
