Leonard's decision to rematch a less than full strength Duran

You have to love the logic by the Leonard fans here. "Well the scale said 147, so Duran was in shape".

Errrr…… what???

 

Except he didn't have to cut a drastic amount of weight a short period of time before the fight. No more than normal, anyway. He apparently had a harder time making weight in Montreal.

You should check out my writeup in the other thread. The conventional wisdom on this one is way off the mark.

 

True, it was kind of like Rocky III, Duran was not hungry any more.

 

How much weight did Duran cut?

 

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/duran-leonard-rematch-timeline.616387/

There are conflicting estimates.

 

And what about the alcohol consumption and poor training camp? Are you prepared to make a declarative statement that Leonard beat the best version of Duran?

 

Duran had the same opportunity to get in shape as Leonard did.

If Duran didn't take that it's a knock on him, not a knock on Leonard.

 

No. And I'm not prepared to make a declarative statement that Duran beat the best version of Leonard either.

I think there's a real chance that Duran gave himself a tummy ache when he pigged out after the weigh in. Or that he was going through some kind of mental funk and not on his A-game, for whatever reason. Or maybe he messed up the weight cut in the final 48 hours and had to resort to drastic last-minute measures to make weight. These things happen.

 

The only possible way you could argue that is to say that Leonard was a tad bit inexperienced in the 1st fight. A hard sell, but debatable. Duran was certainly more experienced in the ring.

 

I believe Duran said, he ate chicken soup after the weigh in, and that's what made him sick during the fight, stomach cramps. He must have not wanted to have an accident in the ring.

 

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure Leonard's camp also claimed that he overtrained for Montreal and peaked too far out before the fight, lost too much weight, etc.

 

I think Ray overrates himself and his shrewdness. He was a great fighter and that is why he could win when he put his mind to things. He was not as mentally strong as he thought he was. I think Duran, and Hearns and Hagler were tougher mentally than he was to have longer careers than Ray did, but Ray had better overall skills than those guys in that he could win different ways. So he was a legit great no matter what.

The Lalonde fight was terrible for boxing and Ray manipulated to get two titles in one night from Lalonde, who is a good person but not a great fighter. And Ray won two titles fighting a weakened Lalonde at 168 where neither were ranked. So to me, he didn't win either title, but he is still a 5 time champ in most people's mind. I think he is 3 time champ and Hearns and Duran and 5 and 4 times champs. He pointed at his chin in the prefight interviews with Hearns for the rematch thinking it would work on Tommy's head, and it didn't do anything but probably motivate Tommy who had been through years of top fights when Ray was at ringside commentating for HBO. Tommy snapped back at the last press conference ( I think it was) I think Ray is on steroids, and Ray wanted an apology. So it seems like Ray was more fragile than Tommy mentally as Tommy said later. He said Ray always wants to play the mindgames, but I think I play it better than he does.


Ray worked magic on Marvin I will admit that, because he was nice and acted humble and the years off made him look like he was just there to show up. He didn't want a motivated angry Marvin who went at Tommy Hearns hard,,. With Duran, I think he fought Duran's fight in the first fight and did well fight Duran's inside fight, and after that fight he learned he had to play the game and fight his fight in fights, but also try and influence outside things. He saw how well Duran did that in the first fight by getting him mad by calling Juanita names, which made Ray fight to try and beat Duran at his own game and as he said " I fought that man on the inside where he loves to fight and I almost beat him". So he learned, but I think he overrated what he learned. The best lesson Ray learned was fight the way you have to so you win. With Marvin -thatwas the only other fight where he maybe was able to outmanuever a fighter mentally and influence everything, but that was Marvin's fault for falling for that. Hearns and Duran would have never fallen for "Marvin is my friend and is a name man" stuff. The weight with Lalonde worked, but no where else. The Norris fight was a ridiculous thing for him.

 

Duran's bender after Montreal is well attested. And he was, what, 10lbs overweight a few days before the weigh-in. Great preparation there. Then in front of dozens of witnesses he began gorging immediately, a good indication that he was dehydrated (as Angelo Dundee noted). Then in front of more witnesses he downed about three steaks, potatoes, juice and who knows what else between the weigh-in and fight time. Again, great preparation there.

Of course Duran was not in good shape. And that was totally on him and his team, not Leonard. The only reason Leonard gets brought into this is because the man himself is an ass who likes to brag that he wanted to get an out of shape Duran in the ring. That part is on him. Imagine Evander Holyfield boasting that he wanted to get an out of shape Riddick Bowe in the ring for their rematch. The whole thing was a joke and so was the so-called "fight".

 

Can't fault a boxer for looking for an advantage as long as it is a level "playing field" and it was ... Duran had accomplished basically everything he wanted to accomplish... He wanted to party in NYC ... good for him

 

And by the way, I think this is the usual year anniversary for this thread here on Boxing forum .. lol //// Everyone comes out of the wood work for this one