Is Roberto Duran a top-10 All Time Great?

[Hands of Iron]

Meh, he hurdled beyond the qualifier by leaps and bounds. His IP per start was amongst the best in the league, though his lack of starts in total hurts him. Maybe if he was pumping the Test and HGH everyone else was, his diminutive body wouldn't break down as often and he'd see faster recovery. It's his dominance of the (extremely) high offensive environment that makes his seasons unique. Nobody ever dominated a league so significantly as compared their contemporaries. The fact that he set records in terms of raw numbers is nothing short of astonishing.

[Senya13]

Originally Posted by McGrain

A "whole lot of contemporaries" think that Frazier and Ali were "only in one good fight" and that Liston "wasn't that good?" I doubt it very much.

Don't rip my words out of context. I said they viewed heavyweight division as a whole as bad all the time, filled with undeserving, slow, skillless, plodding, out-of-shape fighters. Again, not all of them, but most of them were seen as such.

Might be reasonable, i'm not sure. It wouldn't stop him being an excellent contender which is the way he is generally viewed these days.

These days - because the era has been being hyped for over 30 years as the golden one. Look up how Norton was viewed before first Ali's fight and for a while after that, and he was seen as no better than, say, Glen Johnson, if not worse - a journeyman, B-level fighter at best. The hype made him IBHoF worthy all a sudden. Had we had a time machine and transfered the people who voted him in (ie voted an ATG) back into 1970s, they'd be turned over to mental hospital for such claims.

I have yet to read an era Ring opinion that views the HW division as strong. In the 90's, it was weak, Charles era, very weak, Louis era, weak, there are articles that claim boxing is dying due to the weakness of the HW division almost from the moment it was in print.

Either it was never strong even relative to itself or something else is going on.

You need to look a good deal further and farther than Ring to understand what was really happening.

I fully understand that the Ring magazine's opinion wasn't the only one that should be considered. But they were similiar to a lot of other publications and experts in that they might praise other weight divisions as deep and rich, comes another era, they pointed out that it was weak and lacking talent. With heavyweights, there almost never was any praise. Not because they didn't like the division, they spent most of the time talking about heavyweights in their analytical write-ups and gossips, it was simply that - bad compared to other weights.

Ali's resume is superb, and Ring magazine will almost certainly agree with me.

Superb for a heavyweight, that's at least debatable. Compared to the very best fighters from other divisions his resume is awful. And head to head he didn't show himself *that* great (as compared to Duran, for example) to be deserving such high ratings on a P4P basis.

[Hands of Iron]

Senya and Senor Pepe would make a helluva tandem.

[LittleRed]

Originally Posted by Hands of Iron

Meh, he hurdled beyond the qualifier by leaps and bounds. His IP per start was amongst the best in the league, though his lack of starts in total hurts him. Maybe if he was pumping the Test and HGH everyone else was, his diminutive body wouldn't break down as often and he'd see faster recovery. It's his dominance of the (extremely) high offensive environment that makes his seasons unique. Nobody ever dominated a league so significantly as compared their contemporaries. The fact that he set records in terms of raw numbers is nothing short of astonishing.

point by point: the qualifier is not the issue. In absolute terms Pedro pitched significantly fewer innings by like 60. It was.clearly easier for the top pitchers to create separation from their peers: check out the stupendous eras of Maddux, Johnson, Clemens, et al. I'm not suggesting Martinez wasn't great: I'm just saying, to me, it's more impressive to hit .375 over a full season than it is to hit .390 over 125 games.

[Abdullah]

Of course he is top ten. I voted 6-10. The man was the greatest lightweight who ever lived and one of the greatest pound for pound of all time. He had an amazing blend of offense and defense which he utilized in the ring like a tiger/fox hybrid. Most of the people who voted "Not Top 25" apparently have only seen the older version of Duran who was still kicking ass most of the time. Prime Duran at lightweight was a VERY special fighter.

[Senya13]

Originally Posted by Abdullah

The man was the greatest lightweight who ever lived. Most of the people who voted "Not Top 25" apparently have only seen the older version of Duran who was still kicking ass most of the time.

And most people who claim Duran was the greatest lightweight, haven't read a dozen reports of fights of old-time lightweights, and only know about them and the opponents they beat from boxrec.

[Hands of Iron]

Originally Posted by LittleRed

point by point: the qualifier is not the issue. In absolute terms Pedro pitched significantly fewer innings by like 60. It was.clearly easier for the top pitchers to create separation from their peers: check out the stupendous eras of Maddux, Johnson, Clemens, et al. I'm not suggesting Martinez wasn't great: I'm just saying, to me, it's more impressive to hit .375 over a full season than it is to hit .390 over 125 games.

I'm not bothered LR, my man.

Pedro was simply the best pitcher I've ever seen on film and I saw RJ live at least 20 times from 1999-02. The numbers are maybe 25% of what makes me consider him amazing. I used to have all kinds of different stuff on him but I got out of baseball for a good while. Just so rare to see someone possess both the overwhelming power (when he dialed up) with such command and versatility in how he'd pick the wings off a butterfly, so to speak. He's Roy Jones Jr of baseball pitchers. That circle change was just FILTH. His 3rd best - the curve - most No. 1 SP's would kill to have as their out-pitch.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5DO2da00IY&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5DO2da00IY&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuLUmp9_Pac&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuLUmp9_Pac&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/ame]

[LittleRed]

I actually really like Pedro. And like you I don't watch as much baseball as I used to. And the RJ comparison is apt. He's LeBron James gifted.

[PhillyPhan69]

Originally Posted by LittleRed

I actually really like Pedro. And like you I don't watch as much baseball as I used to. And the RJ comparison is apt. He's LeBron James gifted.

Pedro was a great pitcher....but come playoff time I want Curt Schilling on the mound!

[LittleRed]

Clutch guy. Two guesses as to what he considers home Philly...

[PhillyPhan69]

Originally Posted by LittleRed

Clutch guy. Two guesses as to what he considers home Philly...

Yeah....But to be honest, that only played a small part in my statement...He unfortunately couldn't help us win one....but he was lights out in clutch games for us, even though we came up short...Then w/ Boston he was the man in clutch games and games 7's...He was the stopper!

[LittleRed]

Are there clutch boxers? That never comes up. No one is like, "Yeah Joey Giardello was good but he wasn't clutch like Fullmer" or something. In baseball, the real clutch guys are the pitchers because you can negate great hitters by walking them. Schilling, Gibson, Koufax, Big Chief Allie Reynolds, Rivera... Having a guy like that puts fear in the other team.

I remember when Houston was on it's tear going to the world series and we had lidge but see people weren't sold on him. So it's the nlcs (I think) against St. Louis and Pujols is up 9th inning all that clutch stuff. If that were Rivera or somebody with that clutch reputation you would think, he's got this. With lidge, it was, don't blow it.My uncle took one look st lidge and said, "he's going to give up a home run." He gave up a home run. Right there we knew we weren't winning the world series.

Also Robert Horry. That is all.

[Hands of Iron]

He helped us. I love that man.

[LittleRed]

I too am a big Horry fan. Even washed up, he still swung a series or two. Didn't he knock out Steve Nash and Amare with one move.

[Hands of Iron]

I live in Phoenix. I was talking about Schilling.

Fuck Horry.