duran v leonard greatness comparison.

Maybe I've been overrating Duran and his LW reign.

 

Yet Benny overall doesn't have the weight jump wins like SRL.. Moore.. Barkley etc etc.. That is what makes Duran greater overall imo. Not only that, but Benny had more losses at his prime weight than duran did.

 

Duran's reign is probably the third best of the decade, behind Monzon and Napoles who fought top five opposition virtually every time out. Duran did that for around half of his defenses and the blame falls right into the lap of Carlos Eleta. However, he still beat who he needed to beat.

Talking fighter of the decade, I'd still go Duran as he also beat Marcel and Palomino outside of his LW work.

 

Yeah, I've always had Benny ahead. His opposition was incredible.

But I still considered Duran lightweight days as very strong. I'm not so sure it was quite so strong now. There seem to be a fair number of taxi driver types, pre-title and post-title. Duran was incredible as a lightweight, and 6 years and 12 defences stands up whatever the opposition. I think it might have been one of the weakest lightweight crops though.

Duran is greater than SRL though.

 

Duran is also better than Benny.. Moving up the way he did and winning even some of those fights past his best is what legends are made of.. That puts Duran clearly ahead of Benny more me.

 

10 B level fighters DO NOT equal an ATG. There are some prize idiots on this forum.

 

If you put Duran ahead of Benny, you've got to think mighty highly of Ray Leonard. There's just really no getting around it. Moore and Barkley are impressive more for where he was at in his career than their own quality as fighters.

 

Can you name me a win of Benny that compares to beating SRL? I agree to a point... but can you imagine Benny in there with Moore.. Barkley or Hagler? I couldn't cause Benny really didn't test himself in such a manner.

 

And posting up some basic rankings for info purposes swayed you to that extent? or was it something else in the thread.



Personally i think Durans lightweight time veered about wildly in quality, but was strong on the whole....Buchanan Dejesus were great talents, better than any lightweight since has beaten and the equal of Ortiz' best, but a fair number of the average to good challengers were quite uninspiring or gave poor prformances on the night ie Guts, Fernandez, and some just sucked...Rojas, Takuyama, but at least they were obliterated instantly like they should have been.

Bizarro was a fairly marginal talent as well.Robertson was decent, but did nothing to deserve a shot as he'd been beaten by Carmona and Gato Gonzalez(and Villaflor at 130) that was similar to Leonard taking on a faded Boy Green for a relatively safe first defence scenariRtiz was very tough typical mexican lightweight, though probably got his shot a bit earlier than was deserved.

Thompson and Lampkin(and some would say viruet though i'm not sure myself) were fine fighters and represent a sort of solid middle ground by any standard.There probably weren't quite enough of these types as actual title challengers.The premature decline of Ramos, lack of a rematch with an aging buchanan and Gato Gonzalez weight issues and retirement put paid to some solid matchups.

Gets better if you throw in Marcel and Kobayashi too.Another great talent and a formerly fine fighter on the downside but still good.

Villa and Mamby were really good non-title wins.The Villa one being often overlooked because he had a brief career and lost his world title shots, but around that time he was an excellent boxer-puncher.

 

Depends on how you rank fighters.Those fights weren't at lightweight.

If you just rate for what they did at the weight, benny has the deeper record.If you think higher weight success plays into ranking at their best weight then obviously Duran benefits.

 

I rate Duran ahead of Benny P4P, not at LW. I think that highly of SRL.

I said that because sometimes when arguing for Duran's behalf, people tend to take a tremendous **** on everything Leonard was or did... If that's the case, what makes it a great win if Leonard wasn't really **** anyway?

 

You noticed that too then? :yep

 

My posts tend to give off a vibe of being pro-SRL over Duran at times. That's really not the angle at all. So why go to lengths at defending SRL's quality and all time standing, as a Welterweight in particular. Why would I do that?