Duran is Greater: Leonared was great, but cherry picked. The only great fight I can think of was Hearns 1. He lost his greatest fight to Duran, So that proves head to head Duran was the better fighter. He was also older and coming up in weight. Leonard was at peak. His revenge against Duran. Cherry picked, he knew Duran balloneed up and had partied. Hearns he would not rematch until FAR later and Hearns Beat him. Duran went 15 with a younger and fresher Hagler, Very competitive fight. Leonard... waited.. waited and waited. And won a very controversal decision in Haglers last fight. ( he did not look great) He did beat benitez, Duran could not. But Duran has Barkley as a great win. This is WELL past his prime and WELL past his weight fighting a champion far younger and stronger. Leonard..... Nada. Duran fought into his late 40's ..... And beat many contenders way past his best. Leonard did not age well. Duran is a clear winner, But Leonard is not more than 15 places from him. GVreat fighters both. But Duran , Head to head, peak to peak , Lb for Lb is better, Fought much better past his weight class, and for much longer.
I am not conviced that I would say he is a better driver than leonard...perhaps greater in an overall sense, but H2H Leonard has some physical advantages.
Yes street fighters routinely beat ATG great boxers and far bigger opponents while conceding most physical attributes.:think
nice post Also Leonard was always the golden boy and paid well from his very first pro outing and was able to get his sniping demands met with the money made by promoters and opponents ,best example of that is a weight drained Danny Lalonde having to come down in weight to put his light heavyweight title up for Leonard Whereas Duran fought his way to what he won even if it was a bit of a so called rookie in Davey Moore
While some/much of what you say is true it is to slanted, biased and angry sounding to be taken as unequivical truth....also again while containing truth it is slanted and incomplete....you are not painting a full picture...You like Duran and don't like Leonard, we get it!.....although I still rate Duran higher... Losing to Duran (which you mention), is not as big of a minus as losing to DeJesus (not meant as a slam on Duran or DeJesus)....Both men avenged this loss although certainly in different fashion.... Duran was obliterated by Hearns (no great shame) in as decisive a manner as anyone ever...and to me is a bigger minus than SRL/ Norris-Camacho... You give credit to Duran for losing to Hagler and strip Leonard for beating him (some crazy logic at work here?), a mystery to me and I scored the SRL fight for Hagler. Sounds like you are using whatever tool available to denigrate Leonard rather than taking a clear and balanced total picture view.
You're crazy man. The only time Duran outdrove Leonard was when Leonard drove Durans car. When he drove his car no way Duran could keep up.
Was Duran a greater lightweight than Leonard was a welterweight? This content is protected This content is protected Was Duran's victory over Leonard greater than Leonard's over Hagler? This content is protected This content is protected Does Duran compare to Leonard resume wise across a whole career? This content is protected , This content is protected . This content is protected This content is protected Does Duran compare to Leonard skillwise in a peak for peak comparison? This content is protected This content is protected Does Duran's weight hopping compare to Leonard's This content is protected For casual fans it seems Leonard it the default choice for greater boxer. For hardcore fans it seems Duran is default choice for greater boxer. This content is protected This content is protected . This content is protected I've seen lots of debate on the trilogy between these two but not as much debate on who should be greater and, more importantly, why. This content is protected
There's been some good answers that are unfortunately tainted with bias. I mean yeah Duran bloated before the rematch, but that's entirely his fault. With 5 month notice he had every opportunity to train like a champion. And yeah he waited for the Hagler fight but in fairness he was old and 5 years retired whilt Hagler had just stopped his number 1 contender. Very difficult for me to choose thus far.