I’m assuming that the mountain lion is fighting to win the money needed for his son’s operation whereas the leopard is driven by the memory of his sister who was murdered by a gang of racist catamounts.
I think that’s certainly wrong. For one thing, a leopard has much larger and heavier canines, extending below the edge of the lower jaw, than a puma does. Once the teeth are sunk in a leopard’s bite is going to be a lot harder to break than a puma.
FWIW - the distinction between the Panthera subfamily (big cats) and the Felinae subfamily (everything else) is the shape of the hyoid bone and the structure of the jaw, nose, and sinus areas. The Panthera hyoid is the reason that big cats can roar. It’s got nothing to do with relative size and lethality.
The “big cat designation” is strictly non-scientific. Up close and personal, pumas fall squarely in the “Plenty Big Enough” category.
Puma’s got the edge if she can sing “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby”.
StG