Fight of the Week #1: Roberto Duran - Ray Leonard I

All right. I talked about this idea last week and there seemed to be some interest, so I nominate Duran - Leonard I as the first Fight of the Week. A lot of us have argued about this fight before but this thread is intended for people who are actually interested in rewatching this fight and discussing the actual footage. Figured it would be a good opportunity for us to rescore the fight or to call attention to particular moments or overall patterns that we find noteworthy. I hope this works, because I think a series like this could be kind of cool. Anyway, here's a link to the fight:

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I gave the first round to Leonard, 10-9. Duran was the aggressor for much of it but he didn't really land many clean punches. Leonard boxed well, mostly kept his distance, and scored more than Duran. Partly with hindsight bias but I noticed that he seemed a bit disorganized the few times that Duran attempted to rush him and close distance--didn't seem comfortable enough to try to time Duran with hard punches on his way in. Leonard didn't pay for it during the first round but it foreshadowed what was to come a short time later. I also noticed that Duran wasn't nearly as "bat out of hell" aggressive out the gates as some people seem to remember. Seemed fairly deliberate and kind of tentative, except when Leonard stood in place for too long (like the sequence along the ropes with around :40-30 left in the round). Relatively close round but a clear Leonard round, imo.

 

Second round, 10-9 Duran. First half of the round was uneventful with Leonard arguably outpointing him. Duran leaving himself open when he tries to close distance on Leonard, but Leonard seems too uncomfortable to try to take advantage. To my eye, Duran seems to have faster reflexes than Leonard, although Leonard has faster feet (when he uses them) and hand speed. Duran clipped Leonard's chin with a left hook as Leonard was backing up, causing Leonard to stumble and shut down for half a minute or so. It's also interesting watching the tactics that Duran uses to close distance (like how he walks his back foot with feints or Duran landed a good right hand during the second half of the round but didn't really do all that much to take advantage of Leonard being hurt. By the end of the round, Leonard was firing back with hard punches and fighting very much like he had for the first round and a half of the fight.

Even 19-19 through 2.

 

The fight gets discussed, but usually just with the same old talking points and cliches that get repeated in every boxing forum and youtube comment section. The type of stuff fans know to say regardless of whether they've actually watched the fight in the past 25 years (or ever). Was trying to start a thread series where people would actually go back and rewatch fights and comment based on their observations. I chose to start off with this fight because it seemed like there would be a lot of interest in it (and because it was a damn entertaining fight).

 

Thought this one would be low-hanging fruit, exactly because people like to talk about it so much. I have a list of a bunch of less-discussed fights too, but if people aren't even willing to spend a few minutes to rewatch a few rounds of this one, I don't really have a ton of hope for those fights. Maybe we could start another thread for nominations for future fights-of-the-week and then use the ones that get the most votes?