greeter fighter - Duran or Ali

I like both of them. I was reading an interview with Duran when Ali was alive and he chuckled and said I've known him forever.

 

Duran being picked for his "skill", yet he has more losses than wins against his best opponents.

Ali wasn't as technically well rounded as Duran, but the fact he beat the best fighters of two eras means that he is clearly the greater fighter.

 

It's probably because he fought the vast majority of his best opponents while above his best weights and past his best.

Ali has no win as good as going up two weights and beating Sugar Ray Leonard.

 

Some of Ali's biggest accomplishments in the ring came after his prime. Beating Big George certainly ranks up there with Duran beating Leonard.

 

No, Leonard was a far better fighter than Foreman was.

 

The fact that he is only Lightweight Champion who won the Middleweight Championship. That's rather meaningful considering the greats that had graced that division before and since.

 

Foreman fought 81 times, destroyed, not beat a top ten ATG HW, and destroyed not beat a top twenty HW ATG. He recaptured the HW title at 45 years old. He fought 81 times and only was knocked down once and stayed there. Knocking George down and having him stay there when he was at his best and Ali was past his best was a huge accomplishment. Leonard is a better pfp boxer than Big George but Ali beating George how he did and when he did was the bigger accomplishment imo.

 

If you could make a Duran 215lbs at the same height as Ali with their respective prime talents. It would be a fun fight to watch but not much fun for Ali. He would get the worst of it.

 

You don't get brownie points for losing efforts against good opponents when you're old. A loss is a loss. If that's the case, Ali gets boosted even more for facing a prime Holmes when he was in a zombie like state and far past his best.

Ali's win over Foreman is the single greatest win in the history of Heavyweight boxing. Ali was past his prime and knocked out a prime undefeated, hard hitting, monstrosity of a champion and gold medalist who destroyed two of Alis biggest rivals (the only men who beat Ali up until that point). It certainly stacks up to or surpasses Durans win over Leonard. Unlike Duran, Ali doesn't need to milk out and get tons of mileage for one great win over a hall of famer. Duran lost to most of his best opponents no matter how you slice it.

 

Agreed. FotC Frazier plus a big right hand.

And think how mad Ali would make Duran....

'Eef I don't keel heem, it doesn't count.'

 

Are you gonna ignore the fact that Duran was mostly fighting bigger men than him while Ali was almost always the bigger man, with a bigger reach ?!?

 

If Ray taunted him unto capitlultung imagine what Ali would do. Ray learned all his antics from Ali.

 

I don't know why you're telling me what Foreman accomplished like it's half as good as what Leonard did. Leonard was always a better fighter and accomplished far more in half as many fights. Duran's best win is better than Ali: let alone Duran himself.

Knockouts happen in big heavyweight fights all the time, but a fighter moving up 10+lbs and beating a fighter as good as Leonard as clearly as that; while the latter is at his absolute best, is absolutely unprecedented.

 

Not at that point, he wasn't. Ray himself says he went to school in Montreal and it made him a much better fighter.

In Montreal, he was a skinny 24 year old who'd been pro for four years. Still a huge talent but not at the top of his own game at that point.

Despite being similarly inexperienced (six years a pro but a short, if productive, amateur career), Foreman going into Zaire, coming off Caracas, was as good a version of George as we ever got. Ray, pre-Montreal, was yet to become Sugar Ray.

 

Leonard and Duran were both at or near their primes when they fought. Ali was past his prime and Foreman was smack dab in the middle of his when Ali put him to sleep. A boxer in his prime beating another boxer in his prime can't be compared to a boxer past his prime beating another boxer in his prime especially when the boxer in his prime obliterated their two common opponents, both of whom are in the International Boxing Hall Of Fame. Fans were legitimately concerned for Ali's wellbeing in that fight. There certainly wasn't that level of fear for Duran's wellbeing in his fight with Leonard. Remember in your analogy Duran is Ali and Foreman is Leonard