Is it Possible we Overrate Duran?

In your view do you believe Duran needed that low blow to win the title? He looked to be miles ahead and on his way to victory.

If someone that hadn`t seen that fight read your post they may be mislead into believing that Duran needed a low blow to beat Ken Buchanon which we all know wasn`t the case.

 

I think so. Many seem to rate his best performances as untouchable when SRL/Duran I could of easily been scored for Leonard and the outrage for robbery would only last a few years at best and boxing history would of accepted the fact that Duran never beaten Leonard.

 

In another thread (possibly on another forum) someone posted that SRL beat more ranked opponents at WW than Duran did at LW. Could that be correct? Anyone know anything about this?

 

Duran was 11-1 from his debut to the third Dejesus fight. Leonard was 14-1 from his debut to his first retirement. Remove Kalule and that is still true.

Carlos Ortiz, just in his title reign went 13-2-1, and we're ignoring his results from before which are still impressive. Pernell Whitaker went 11-1 as well, and I think most people would argue 12-0. Sammy Angott, who probably makes zero top 10 lightweight lists, went 23-7-3 up to his title loss. 11 wins is just not a jaw dropping number by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Yes but this brings me back to my original post which was:

The flip side of this is he really gets no credit at all for all the non title wins he racked up at lw after he became the title holder.

When he won the title he was 29-0 and when he left the division he was 64-1. That's 36 fights which is a hell of a lot of fights, no matter how you look at it. Hell it represents about 3/4 of the entire number of fights Mayweather fought in his entire careers so far.

 

I included non title fights in the number. If I take those out it's a lot less.

 

I'm confused. Duran was 29-0 when he beat Buchanan, when he left the division he was 64-1. That's a total of 36 fights. Of those 36 fights, 12 were title fights and the rest were not. of the remained 24 that were not, he was 23-1, hence the one loss. So how is this included. I'm not suggesting all of his non title opponents were worthy of a title shot, but certainly 4-5 of them were. But my overall point is that simply that title defenses and even titles themselves don't tell the whole story. For example, Duran could have fought for the 130 belt had he wanted to since he weighted 132 against Buchanan.

 

In no way could that fight have been scored for SRL.. The only way that would be possible is for a relative of SRL or blind person.

 

A number of those fights were contested over the lightweight limit.

 

Also Duran gave title shots to several less than deserving guys.

 

His lightweight resume is solid enough but not as much as perhaps a few other greats in that division.

I think, if anything, certain aspects of his post-lightweight career are overrated, and other aspects overlooked.
I've definitely seen his win over Barkley, as great as it was, being taken to unwarranted levels of reverence on this particular forum.

 

I think its possible he is overated at lightweight, his opposition was not remarkable imo.I would rate him no higher than number 4.P4p, he sits high .

 

His accomplishments from 154-168 are overrated. Most guys with that kind of resume get forgotten with time.

 

I personally think an argument can be made that Duran's record might not have been the best in terms of lw greats, but on a H2H basis, there's no lw fighter I would bet on to beat a peak Duran, Leonard included.

 

How so? I thought that might have been among the best wins of his career, all things considered.