NEW YORK (AP) - When Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns start talking up a fight as if they were in it during their prime, boxing fans listen.
The two champions like what they've seen from Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter, who meet tonight at Brooklyn's Barclays Center for Thurman's WBA welterweight title.
"Both guys are at the top of the welterweight division," Leonard said. "The only thing that's different is that me and Tommy were so well known by sports fans. We were on TV a lot, and that's what built our names and gave people the chance to see us so much.
"And that's what they're doing now with the (Premier Boxing Champions) and the shows being on network TV (CBS). This could be a fight like ours. Who knows? But I do know that the fans are waiting on this fight."
Adds Hearns, who lost a brutal bout to Leonard on a 14th round knockout in 1981, then drew with Leonard in 1989: "I know Thurman and Porter have the ability to get each other out of there. It's going to be a matter of who gets to who first. I'm definitely watching. I hope to be there in person."
Thurman-Porter will be the first main event on CBS since - get this - Muhammad Ali fought Leon Spinks in February 1978.
Thurman brings a spotless record (26-0, 22 knockouts) and substantial power into the bout.
Porter, a former IBF welterweight champion, is 26-1-1 but hasn't fought in nearly a year since impressively handling highly touted Adrien Broner. Not by choice.
"You know what, that's not what I wanted," he says. "That's not what I expected. I expected to come out of that big fight and go right into another. But, boxing is business and you got to do what you got to do.
"So when Keith Thurman became the next fighter for me to fight against, it just became a matter of time."
Thurman also has been idle for a while; his last outing was a win against Luis Collazo last July. He was in an auto accident that forced postponement of this fight, originally set for March.
"You know, me and Shawn both could have probably put another performance in," Thurman says. "But we're happy to be making, instead of just a normal performance, putting on a great performance, even if we both had to wait for it. We're both really getting what we wanted out of this fight. It was worth the wait."
The layoffs mean two particularly eager boxers are going at it. That doesn't necessarily mean they will be at their sharpest, though Thurman (27) and Porter (28) are in their primes.
Thurman has held either the interim or full-fledged WBA world crown since stopping Diego Chaves in July 2013. He's had have five successful defenses.
Porter's blemishes are a draw with Julio Diaz in December 2012 - he won a rematch nine months later - and his majority decision loss to Kell Brook in 2014 that cost him the IBF belt.
But his unanimous decision against Broner turned heads.
Now, Thurman and Porter get to headline a prime-time card on free TV. That, Thurman notes, is a big deal.
"And here we are, going to be fighting on CBS, opening up the show prime time," Thurman says. "If our battle is going to be the battle that they see from the last time they aired boxing, which was Muhammad Ali, this is history in the making. We both have legacies, we both have dreams that we want to live. And if it means getting through each other, then so be it."