Is it Possible we Overrate Duran?

Especially since Ray never fought at lightweight.

 

I meant Benny

 

He exceeded expectations, and Barkley was definitely a genuinely big man. A great comeback win, and a notable upset. Also, a very good fight.

But I would point out that Iran Barkley was, at best, only the #3 middleweight in the world. I'm fairly convinced that either of the top 2 would have absolutely outboxed Duran.
Also, I thought the fight was razor close and could easily have gone Barkley's way too, in all fairness.

 

hmm. I think that was one of the best versions of Barkley I've ever seen, both Gil Clancy and Berstein were raving about his punch output, the power of his punches and the fact the keep going to the body, that said, I do think he was a bit unlucky not to have gotten the decision, but the judges were certainly influenced by the knockdown. But for the knockdown, Barkley would have definitely won that fight. But credit to Duran for not going down cause there were numerous punches that landed that were absolutely vicious. The commentators were both saying those body punches were going to have an affect later in fight, and strangely enough they simply didn't.

 

I think Williams beats Duran ,and rate Leonard, Gans and Ike above Duran.

 

Fair enough.

 

It depends what Duran shows up. Williams would be shown skills he's never seen before if he tries to out work Duran.

I used to rate Duran the n1 lightweight but now I think he's a toss up top 3. Gans and Leonard were immense from the small clips I've seen and stories I heard about them. Gans fighting in two day's takes some beating. He had a tough fight vs some non entity tough guy then travelled on train to fight the bigger brilliant Sam Langford the next day. He lost on points but gave Lang hell.

I remember Garfield telling me Benny L used to be so good gyms halted work so people could watch him train. The same was done with Duran though and many others greats tbh.

 

My view of it is that Gans and Benny may have accomplished more than Duran did at that particular weight (lw), and thus I have no problem with them being ranked higher than him at lw, but on a h2h basis I'd pick a peak Duran over them both.

 

I agree with you mate, I'm just more open to the subject since I read some skills and stories on Gans and Benny and what they did to people in the ring when they were fully prepared. Ray Arcel said Benny was the cleverest boxer he ever encountered but he's also said Duran was the best he trained and even said SRL was the best fighter he ever watched :blood

Gans was totally lauded by everybody he was apparently so good. Duran as tough and skilled as he was (he's still the best I've ever seen on film btw) is not going to walk through Gans or Leonard. He would try and head butt the **** out of them and rough them up though

I would pick Duran vs any lightweight great but I'm a fan boy of his so I'm a bit biased at times.

 

Footage of prime Joe Gans and prime Benny Leonard is in far shorter supply than footage of prime Duran, and of much lower quality.
Of course, that makes it favourable to Duran when imagining head-to-head fantasy matches.

 

It also makes it difficult to truly compare them in any meaningful sense as fighters

Ample good quality footage is ESSENTIAL in boxing to compare fighters at a more than superficial level.

not that i am at all against giving fighters their due based on other avenues of research, but when you get into the deeper direct comparisons i wish so many people wouldn't talk about certain fighters with limited bad quality footage available as if they have the capacity to know them on the level of fighters where we can watch 20-30 fights.

It's Hubris of the highest order.I'd like to see a greater level of humility and restraint.

 

This is spot on. I dont think there's any prime footage of Benny L and what we have of Gans is only really a few flashes of brilliance in **** film. There's not much prime SRR at welter if any and the no footage of Greb is very annoying imo. It makes it hard to judge H2H if you dont have extensive footage of a boxer.

People think some old timers are **** because their fight footage is done with garbage old tech, picking up incorrect speed in a herky jerky way and stalling on and off in split seconds. You cant capture a fighters fluidity watching those really old films.
I showed a mate a clip of Barney Ross the other week, which was actually a decent film compared to the likes of Gan has. He said Barney looked rubbish caus he's old. I raged hard at the stupid kunt [emoji51]

 

I guess this is why these questions are always going to be opinion based. But back to my answer with respect to Duran vs Gans and Leonard, I guess I think Duran would win, simply because at his very best, there really wasn't any weaknesses to be had. What are you going to do? Go toe to toe with him, he's got hands of stone and a chin of granite and a great defense, so good luck with that. Outbox him? well at his best he was pretty damn fast, knew how to cut off the ring, and wouldn't give you any breathing room. He'd just be coming at you non stop for the full 15. It would be pretty had to avoid that onslaught for 15 rounds without getting hit with something significant.

If his chin and defense weren't so damn good I could see some fighters such a Pryor, Gans Pacquio, Williams JCC etc, maybe bombing him out but when you put the entire package together he was a hell of a fighter. That said he could loss to one or more of these fighters once (Whitaker, Leonard perhaps) but if it were the best of 3 I think he beats anyone at 135.

 

I totally agree mate [emoji106]

 

I think you underrate Duran here. Duran was so complete and fluid in his prime. He was a slick brawler/boxer and had lots of subtle moves he did to manipulate space on the inside. His variety of tricks, faints and punch selection on the inside is thee best ever. He is also a defensive master who rarely got hit on the inside or outside untill he met Hearns when he was past it small and fat. I read he was in great shape for Benitez though so no fat Duran excuses there just bad style probably or a tad past his best. When Duran was in his prime he proved he could box on the outside and was an outstanding counter puncher but in bunches, those body shot counters are unreal almost as good as SRR body brutality. Duran was slick and clever as hell at his best. He got a bit slow and fat when he went up to the mid weights but my **** he made up for it nearly out smarting the much bigger Hagler destroying very highly rated at the time Davie Moore and taking the much much bigger Barkley all the way while eating his best shots, out smarting him and putting him on his **** with a Joe Louis style combo. I watched that fight a few times and If it wasn't for the late knock down Barkley deserved the win.
Leonard, Hagler, Moore Barkley, Buchanan, Palomino and Ernesto Marcel all said he was the smartest fighter they ever faced.

Mosley would never ever beat Duran atsch