Who's Greater: Roberto Duran or Muhammad Ali?

Duran, SRL and Mayweather all beat great fighters at their peak. Not sure you have to beat ATG at their peak just because different people have different views as to who is an ATG and when such fighters are at their peak hence my reference to great fighters.

 

This is a controversial way of viewing fighter's careers but it's an interesting viewpoint as someone that's more well versed in rap (and just music in general) than boxing. There's rappers that have incredibly high peaks but then taper off and spend a great portion of their career just languishing and dropping duds where each subsequent release arguably tarnishes their legacy. Eminem is an example of this, he had one of the highest peaks and skills of a rapper ever for a good three years... before falling off horribly and now has more bad music than good more than double the amount of bad music than good. Yeah, at his peak he was one of the most skilled ever, but he only maintained that for a relatively short period. There's other rappers that have been consistently good (or at the least less consistently awful than him) but may have never quite reached his heights, how do you compare said careers side to side? Do you rate someone that's had an extremely high peak but then had a terrible latter half higher than someone that's not quite reach the same heights but had consistency and longevity? Not as relevant to Duran but more Roy Jones in my mind, but yeah this was a bit of a tangent but it's just shows how subjective all this stuff is. I've seen people get a bit too anal and pedantic about this stuff and do literal mathematical equations regarding artist's discographies and those who have a poor average are penalized even though that clearly hurts artists (and fighters) with a longer career and if you were to rate fighters on a curve than that just gives incentive to retire early.

 

Great post once again. The rap game is a perfect example.

 

I used the eminem comparison with pacquiao (as a fan of both used to be a massive stan of eminem actually) cause there's such a big parallel with those two in terms of fanbases that it just stuck out to me. Both were sort of outsiders (Asian in boxing obviously I know there's Asian greats but hell even hardcores have a hard time naming 5 other asian greats unless you're a boxing historian and none have come close to the success of Manny and obviously Eminem in rap needs no explanation, though again the underground scene had a lot of talented white battle rappers). Both could be argued to be underrated by the media in rankings but their loyal diehard fanbases more than makeup for that so... And Mayweather is as Jay z as it can get. Boastful, arrogant, made a truckload of money and both have the biggest haters (hell even I don't like Jay z that much). For whatever it's worth I do rank Manny and Floyd higher in boxing than those two in rap, er well no because boxing has a higher storied history, I mean to say that those two are better at their respective craft and more dedicated than the other two. Honestly comparing manny to eminem is almost an insult since if that was the case manny would've fell off ages ago and put out turd performances after beating Cotto.

 

I don't see it as controversial at all, really.

It's difficult to be great for a long time. We all know that. It's difficult to go out on top. We all know that, too.

So people who manage to be a great for a long time and do go out on top should be acknowledged for doing something that is incredibly difficult.

Duran was great for a whole decade. Great accomplishment. For the next two decades, he wasn't. In fact, he often embarrassed himself.

You brought up Roy Jones. He was the same way. When Roy Jones beat John Ruiz, I was on message boards where longtime boxing people felt Jones may be the best fighter P4P all time.

Jones was 48-1. Won titles from middleweight to heavyweight. Only loss was a DQ while he was in the process of knocking Griffin out. And then he wasted Griffin inside a round in the return.

For 14 years, it was all-time great stuff. Then he fought for another 15 YEARS ... and was badly beaten and humiliated over and over and over again. He was bad longer than he'd been great.

And now nobody is saying he was #1 P4P all time. It's not even a consideration. And I agree. I feel the same about Duran.

Some people will spend hours complaining about a couple losses one fighter has, and then give another a pass for DECADES of bad performances and losses.

I believe you should use the same criteria to rate all fighters. Not overlook DECADES of bad performances and losses, and then needle others to death over a couple bad nights.

We can all acknowledge someone was great for a time, but when compared with everyone else who ever fought, there were a lot of great fighters who didn't have 15 or 20 BAD years to go along with the great ones.

 

See I'm actually ok with the whole discrediting bad losses at the tail end or hell latter half of a fighter's career when it's clear they're way past their peak, but you have to have some consistency in this. For example you can pretty much throw out Roy Jones career after the Ruiz/Tarver 1 win and only look to evaluate his career before that cause anyone with a brain knows how badly he fell off and it's not like he had any real worthwhile wins after, so ok after that portion is done it's like you can book end his career. The problem is when fighters who fight past their prime and have inconsistent performances but then people only evaluate the good but pretend the bad didn't happen. Like people for example just crediting Duran for the Barkley win but none of the losses. If Pacquiao loses his next fight you can't just throw that out but then prop up the Thurman win, well I guess you can because a year is a long time as a post 40 year old, but let's say he loses to Crawford but wins against Spence. You can't throw the Crawford loss but then take claim for the Spence win is what I'm saying. And mind you I understand why people do this, it's a whole "if this fighter can do this **** while he's geriatric imagine what he can do in his prime!" and yeah that's a decent point but it's a bit reductive. That's making the assumption that a cagey veteran with experience would replicate the same win (great win) because he's in his physical prime but there can be cases when you can't just assume that because maybe a fighter's style in their physical prime wouldn't work as well, this is more a hypothetical again (I know I deal with them a lot) but it is what it is.

I don't know though at the end of the day though, like I said this is all very subjective in how you choose to rank fighters and how much stock you put into post prime losses. The issue I have with this line of reasoning however is, like I said, it incentivizes early retirement or people doing whatever to protect their 0.

Also on another tangent I actually kind of disagree, I feel if anything fighters that fight past their expiration date and continue to show their heart get almost mythologized compared to fighters that go out on top. Like I see more people reminiscing about prime Roy Jones and how much of a god he was compared to people mocking his chin, though I definitely see the latter. Also it can be argued that going out on top makes people either more critical of you (mayweather never gave fans the satisfaction of him tasting defeat) but to a lesser extent Carlos Monzon retired on top as a champion clearing out his division but he isn't mentioned as much except within hardcore circles, though I wonder how much that has to do with you know killing his wife and all.

 

Rating fighters is difficult. Some fighters are great because of who they beat. Some are great for how long they were on top. Some are great for how tough they were in losing. Some were great for dominating performances. Some were great for being able to go to war and out-tough someone else.

Fighters aren't great for the same reasons. I just look for some consistency in rating them. That's all. (LOL)

 

Yes, he was. He was still beating formidable fighters when his health was failing.

 

Gem of a tribute from George Foreman.

 

Ali for me. I personally love Duran more, but Ali just did great things. Up until the very end, he always did great things and overcame everyone he faced (norton scorecard controversies aside) in the long run. Duran's career was more up and down.

Both guys would take some opponents too lightly, not train properly at times, and had distractions outside the ring. I think Ali showed he could pull out wins in situations similar to ones that Duran lost.

Essentially, I think Ali's career was slightly greater than Duran's because he beat Lyle but Duran lost to Laing. It's that close but I edge Ali.

 

Basically, its a pick between Ali vs Foreman vs Duran vs Barkley.

Duran for me.

 

Duran

 

How you make comparisons like that. Don't even make sense. Two totally different styles of fighters in two totally different weight classes. The fact in thier careers is that Roberto was a star and Ali was a super star.