Ali made a living beating fighters who were more technically sound than he was going back to Sonny Banks. As A.J. Liebling said of the fight and this is from memory "Hard work and solid instruction will carry a young man a long way but there is much to be said for natural talent." And you can make Duran the size of Tyson Fury with the physique of Evander Holyfiield which would make him a golem and he isn't scaring Ali.
This is the same avatar used by a member of a boxing website & former journeyman HW as I was on for a good decade. While you wanted to keep your actual identity private, are you "Evoluton" from AJ's website?
Based upon the literal intitial question & his far more gregarious & charismatic personality... I feel Ali is easily the "greeter" fighter.
I was The One and That One from Boxrec. ThatOne is my twitter handle and that's how I registered here. I hope he or she was a good poster. I'm passionate about Ali. He's been one of my heroes since I knew what one was.
No that doesn't apply to Duran does it? He beat a helluva fighter in Ken Buchanon at age 22. at MSG. Was that not a big fight? Beating DeJesus 2 out of 3. Those were big lightweight fights. He dominated the division for 6 years 12 defenses. He was regarded P4P as the best of the 70s. He moves to Welterweight and was still real good.. beat Palomino at MSG. Big fight. Former, recent champion. Beats Leonard ofcourse then never regained his form again. He never fought the same way again. After that at the higher weights he was still formidable bur needed somebody to fight him, he no longer could close distance. An Ali fan should respect that because we know Ali had lost something after his layoff. Right. Does Ali lose to Frazier prelayoff? Many Ali fans swear he would tap dance on his head. Got outboxed by Norton at least twice. Does that happen prelayoff? Are we making excuses for Ali or is it true? Duran deserves no excuses, we gotta be consistent.
He doesn't have to scare him. Duran would knock Ali out In a P4P fight. Muhammad would wish he was in with Foreman or Frazier by comparison. Ray Leonard could hold his own inside as opposed to Ali just holding for dear life. The heavyweights Ali fought don't compare in skillset to Duran's opponents.
Ali had sixty one fights. Only one fight didn't go the distance and that's when he was a zombie and Herbert Muhammad who was in the front row had to send a message to Angelo Dundee to stop the fight. So let me get this straight Sonny Liston, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, and Earnie Shavers couldn't knock out Ali and Larry Holmes couldn't knock out his ghost but a mythical Duran who became the size of Tyson Fury with the physique of Evander Holyfield could. No need to blow up Duran to a heavyweight. Duran was in rhe ring with a pint sized version of Ali and he went 1 and 2. Oh, but Little Ray could fight on the inside and that's how he held Duran off. Ali fought one of the greatest inside fighters of all time and went two out of three. Ali always found a way until his body betrayed him.
It's an irrelevant point if you decide to compare a lower division guy to a HW. You should only compare wins and skill. At least that's how I do it. I don't give brownie points for jumping divisions when the HW can't do it. No, Foreman was better at cutting off the ring, parrying, body shots, and walking guys into shots. Leonard was not better in every single category. Ali only a "little" slower. 70's Ali never looked like this again. This content is protected This content is protected I said Duran was in much better shape physically post Leonard than Ali was post Foreman. 9 years after beating Leonard Duran beat Barkley. 9 years after beating Foreman, Ali was retired with a pot belly and slurred speech and could barely hit a speed bag. The 3rd Norton fight was a gift and he went life and death with Leon Spinks who didn't belong in the ring with him. We were discussing how past it Duran was compared to Ali leading up to and after their signature wins. Duran obviously had more in the tank athletically than Ali who was already declining before Zaire and then started going downhill like a boulder after manilla. The very quote you posted of mine spells it out for you that I'm talking about comparing records against their best opponents. When I said milking out the Leonard win I'm specifically referring to this thread and several others where people use that win as their trump card whenever Duran is compared to another ATG. I clarified what I meant 3x now and I have no idea how you gathered from that I think Duran "couldn't be a hall of famer without Leonard". The thread is specifically about Duran vs Ali and I was talking about how they fared against their best opponents. Unless you think the guys he beat at lightweight were better fighters than Benitez, Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, etc? Who he went 1-5 against? You obviously don't. So why don't you address that? I don't really care what the reason was for the losses. My approach regardless of weight classes is to compare best wins, skill, and longevity. The fact Duran met so many monsters in upper divisions is not my problem. No one put a gun to his head and told him to move up. Or to pig out on food for that matter. It's the same thing Tyson fans do when they're confronted with the fact he lost to many of his best opponents. They cut off anything before Tokyo just like Duran fans cut off everything before the Leonard loss. But then they cherry pick good moments past their prime when it helps. The ONLY way to compare fighters of different eras and divisions is to compare their best wins and losses side by side. Unless the circumstances were that Duran was drugged, took a dive, the opponent had PEDs, or something crazy to that effect, if he legitimately lost to an elite opponent that needs to be factored in the debate. I'm obviously not bringing up completely washed up Duran vs Camacho or Ali vs Holmes. Just wins and losses when they were operating at the elite level. If you include Barkley as a solid win for Duran, then anything prior to that should be factored in unless there were crazy circumstances. Then you're essentially making it impossible to really compare their careers.
I already addressed that. Ali went 8-3 against other members of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame. I won't even make an excuse for his loss to Holmes. I'll let Ali own it. What was Roberto Duran's record against other members of the Internatonal. Boxing Hall Of Fame. I count at least five losses.
Ali didn't need a gift for his most crucial career defining wins tho. Well, aside from the 3rd Norton fight. Liston 1: beat him fair & square via stoppage Liston 2: stopped inside the distance Terrell: 1 sided massacre and obvious decision Patterson 1: legitimate stoppage Frazier 2: you could fret about the clinching but he did enough to win. It certainly wasn't like Frazier put on a clinic and got robbed. Norton 2: close fight and even Norton admits it was close. Foreman: KO win Frazier: legitimate stoppage Spinks 2: definitely deserved the decision. Out of the most important wins of Alis career he rarely let things go to the judges in the first place. It was the past his prime late 70's Ali that was usually getting iffy decisions.
To the posters invested in Duran's greatness I can respect that. That being said if you're comparing boxers it doesn't make sense to me to add weight to them and have them retain their natural attributes because they're not them anymore. Floyd Mayweather at 215 pounds is no longer the Floyd Mayweather we know. The way we can compare them is how they did against other greats. I rely on the International Boxing Hall Of Fame to confirm greatness. That's how it is in every sport.
The Foreman unbeatable monster thing... that was a fairly recent perception of him at the time. Due of course to his destruction of Frazier and Norton. Prior to that, he had many critics, the majority of whom labeled his as stiff and robotic, even amateurish. In Zaire, we mustn't forget that George hated Zaire. He hated the food. He was paranoid. He got cut in sparring and wanted to leave the country... they wouldn't let him. George was miserable there. Ali by contrast loved Zaire and the crowd loved him. It was essentially home field advantage for Ali. This is NOT to discredit Ali's fantastic victory at all. But these things need to be mentioned for context and clarity. As great at Ali's victory was, I don't think it compares to Duran's win over a prime Leonard, who was far more complete and just plain better than George in almost every department except punching power. Duran took the fight to Leonard, out fighting Leonard who was a killer in his own right. He took Leonard out of his game and plain just beat him in a magnificent fight. Rumble was certainly dramatic, but it wasn't a great fight. It was a great performance by Ali for sure, but it required suicidal bravery, laying on the ropes taking heavy punishment and sharpshooting the extremely one-dimensional Foreman when the opportunity arose, in the hopes that George would tire. Well, it worked. But George fought pretty badly it must be said. He rued and lamented that fight for 2 decades until he vindicated himself against Moorer. Leonard by contrast put up a hell of a fight, and Duran still won, having cleaned out his own division first. I fail to see how Rumble compares. If it wasn't Ali, and heavyweights weren't so romanticized, a whole heck of a lot of people wouldn't remember that fight.
The Rumble isn't all Ali did. He beat every ranked contender or almost every ranked contender in the 60s, was banned from boxing during what would have been his prime years of 26, 27, 28 and part of 29, and repeated the feat in the 70s when he was past his prime and many of his opponents were in the middle of theirs. He went 8-3 against his fellow members of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. That was the dinner. Knocking out Big George and regaining the title that was stolen from him was the dessert.
So Floyd Mayweather is the greatest fighter of all time, if you are what your record says you are. Joe Walcott must have been a crappy fighter. Maybe even a bum. It's just a quote.