When you look at the history of the division, all the great names and champions at 135, and resumes stacked with great fighters, does Duran really deserve to make the top 5 at lightweight? He probably has better wins at welterweight, beating the recently dethroned Palomino and then the famous victory over Leonard. At lightweight his resume looks pretty thin. Could it be his exploits at higher divisions are being counted towards his lightweight rating ?
Buchanan was a good win but I didn't like the way it ended or the failure to rematch. DeJesus was a pretty good lightweight. Who else was there?
That fight with Buchanan could have gone either way on the scorecards but Duran was awarded a KO on a filthy foul below the belt after the bell. Then you have the ref claiming it wasn't low and the commentator backing him up. What a bunch of clowns!
Yes, the win over Buchanan is a bit tainted, in my opinion. It seems to be his best achievement at lightweight nevertheless. I'm a bit uneducated about his challengers but seems like a pretty weak bunch.
yes, he was always a bit overrated as far as wins. People said he was a top 10 atg, not with his wins. The leonard win was his best win, and then he loses easily to Ray in the rematch and rubbermatch..
I lived through the Duran era as a lightweight and at that weight he was the best I ever saw. Higher weights he did not seem to take his two handed KO power. He was very quick, very slick, could punch for 15 rounds non stop, tremendous power unlike any I've seen at that weight all along with killer instinct and will to win second to non. His KO wins over Dejesus, Lampkin were his keystone victories and he was on his way to beating fairly and squarely Buchanan (a great ltweight) when the bout ended controversially. Greatest fighter at that weight I have or will see.
I got the impression that they were both about even in scoring and that Duran was getting the slightly worse of it. So I guess we differ in opinion on that.
The interesting thing is that Duran showed far more diverse skills at the higher weights against bigger and better opposition than he needed to and did at 135 where he simply just overpowered guys .. while he was not a one punch guy at the higher weights he was always a respectable hitter ..
There's no opinion or impression involved .... 8-3-1, 8-3-1 and 9-2-1 were the scores in favor of Duran. The AP had it 9-3.
Although Buchanan was always competitive in there Duran was winning the fight handily, there's no doubts about that. Having said that Buchanan was hit in the groin well after the bell.
No. Simply not true. The fight could not have gone either way on the scorecards. That's a falsehood. On the worse Duran scorecard, the judge had given Duran 8 rounds, which means he could not have lost the fight, unless if course he was stopped. None of the judges had judged the 13th round, another one for Duran. And Duran hit Kenny in the nutsack after Kenny had thrown 2 blatant after the bell blows for at least the 2nd time in the fight. You really need to watch the fight, look at the actual scorecards and do the research yourself, instead of writing stuff that simply isn't true. Your revisionism is astonishing.