Which fighters would Chavez do better against than Duran would?

Let's throwout the window mythical match ups of how you think Duran/Chavez and focus on who they fought and how they did.

Duran against Chavez Opponents:

Taylor - Duran wouldn't get hit as much as Chavez and would take advantage of Taylor's defensive deficiencies quicker than Chavez did. I see Taylor being stopped mid rounds

Delahoya - even if he was past his prime I don't see Duran not taking advantages of DLH's telegraphing and defensive issues. Then again Benitez, Leonard and Laing all give past prime Duran nightmares with movement.

Whitaker - the real question mark opponent of many debates, the defensive stylist is a style that beat Duran later in his career, which some excuse with him being past prime. Buchananan is the highest level defensive boxer mover that beat.

Chavez may well have done better against Whitaker than Duran would, although I don't think that's a given


Randall - Duran would eat Randall up

Rosario - Duran would dissect him

Chavez against Duran's Opponents

Leonard - I can't see Chavez having much success with Leonard at all

Benitez - Chavez may do better here but maybe not, pressuring 5'10 Benitez is probably a harder proposition than pressuring 5'6 Whitaker

Buchanan - Chavez wins but this would be much closer as Chavez wouldn't bring the same intensity as Duran

Palermino - I think this would be a close fight for Chavez that he should edge

DeJesus - I'll have to have a think about this 1.....

Thinking about it, Chavez is maybe a bit more methodical, but Duran was the significantly better offensive and defensive attributes and quicker too

 

Chavez beat camacho.

Did duran ever beat someone as stylistically good on that level?

 

Buchanan, Dejesus.

 

You really think de jesus is of stylistic comparison to someone like macho?

 

I tried to imagine that size/strength wouldn't play a factor. Duran campaigned more over his optimum weight than Chavez really. But yes sticking to 135-140lbs may give a better comparison, ofcourse Duran left those weights a a 26yo. I'd still stick in Whitaker at 147 as Whitaker is smaller than Duran really

Anyway I don't think Duran does worse against anyone of Chavez's opponents bar maybe Whitaker and think Chavez most likely has more problems with Buchanan and DeJesus

 

No.

He doesn't run that much.

 

I forgot about Camacho, the thing is though Camacho was past his best and ultimately not the gutsiest of fighters and likely goes into a shell

 

Yeah his courage is the one thing that lets him down. I think he takes the early rounds until duran nails him with a big right. From then duran sweeps every round.

My only issue is that duran, by my reckoning, never beat a slick elusive type of fighter.

 

Buchanan has an argument to be just that, not as quick as Camacho, but maybe better fundamentals

 

Viruet? Fernandez? Marcel?

 

You think his fundamentals are better? I'm not overly sure.

If camacho was mentally strong he'd have been a superstar imo.

 

Chavez was definitely more consistent against runners or good fighters that used loads of movement.

Not that i really think Duran struggled with movers as such, but if they were also conservative offensively he could go through the motions for chunks of the bout and spend longer in 2nd or 3rd gear than was needed.

 

I think Ken B. and De Jesus were every bit as slick and fudamentally sound as macho.. if not more so. Macho was obviously faster than either, but Chavez also didn't fight a peak Macho either. You can't put a peak macho against Duran and give chavez the edge there when he beat a past prime one... Duran destroys the same version of the Macho Man. Prime for Prime.. Duran would struggle more, just like Chavez would.