Duran has, by far, one of the greatest P4P resumes of all time. But what about his resume at lightweight, do you think it's impressive or overrated? What are some of his best wins?
I think his career at lightweight speaks for itself, he's generally recognized as the greatest lightweight of all time.
I was a huge Duran fan growing up and there is still no doubt he was one of the best. He fought what was there at lightweight, not horrible, not great either... Still trying to figure out why he had a three fight series with DeJesus. Ike Williams would have KO'ed an opponent like him very quickly and easily and there would never be a reason for a three fight series.
He fought who was there during his reign. That's all you can ask of a Champion. BTW I don't believe for a second Ike Williams KO's DeJesus quickly and easily.
The cornerstones of Duran's LW resume are De Jesus & Buchanan. Whilst excellent wins, I think the best 2 x opponents beaten at or around LW of Leonard (Welsh & Tendler) and McFarland (Welsh & Britton) edge them, whilst Gan's best 2 (Erne & McFadden), at least match it. After best 2 x opponents beaten around LW, I think Leonard & Gans both have more depth, whilst McFarland probably has roughly equal depth. Leonard (10-0, or 9-0 if you don't include a defence when he was 1lbs overweight), Gans (15-2) & Duran (13-0) all have outstanding title records. It's here (0-0-1) that McFarland is hurt, though it seems unfair to hold it against given he did beat Welsh in a non title fight and was considered to be on the better end of both their draws. I think Leonard and Gans are clear top 2 if you limit your analysis to fights in & around LW and their quality of opposition beaten, relative to the era they boxed in, is your key criteria. I have Duran #3 and McFarland #4, though arguably if I reviewed their exact same resume's and ignored whether those fights were for the world title or not, that order would be reversed.
Cheers mate, really appreciate that. Equally I appreciate yours. You're open minded, which is a strong indicator of high intelligence.
I asked a similar question a while back and following those responses and research I can say Duran beat a ton of tough SOBs at lightweight. I think we judge older champs by the standards to today's match making which is fight a bunch of stiffs to remain unbeaten before cashing in on a big money "legacy defining" fight against a showy name, which usually happens 5 years too late. In Duran's time you beat the crap out of whoever was put in front of you at the weight until you could literally not fit in your lightweight pants anymore before moving up. I suppose you can say the era of the four kings was the start of the megafight era we now live in. But before that Duran, Hagler, Holmes etc simply cleared out the top contenders. They didn't avoid anyone significant, if they didn't fight someone it was because another tough contender had knocked them out of contention so they fought them instead. Fans in 10 or 20 years time will look at Roy Jones Jnr's record and say "what a thin resume", I think it is just the nature of changing times and also the nature fame. There are tons of great fighters who are better than their records suggest or were very good but never became more than a fringe contender. We are so obsessed with titles now that unless a fighter has beaten 20 "world champs" or "ATGs" his reign is suspect when many fighters from Duran's time would probably be champs now and we would be saying "wow Duran beat future champs Lampkin, Edwin Viruet and Vilomar Fernandez". In fact the last named is a good example as he holds a win over Alexis Arguello for god's sake! That's sort of equivalent to Glen Johnson having a win over Roy Jones. A reasonably obscure fighter who beat Alexi F*cking Arguello.
Ike had like a four-fight series (maybe it was three, maybe it was more than four) and lost more than he won, so I’m not sure this is accurate. He also fought a lot of other guys more than once without just knocking them out and moving on. Maybe Angott is better than DeJesus, maybe not, but he’s one example.
I always felt we only just started to see the depth of the diversity of Duran's skill set after he left 135 .. at lightweight he seemed bored, winning by pure strength and power till DeJesus 3 ..
Think his lightweight title record is 12-0-0-11 which includes a few hall of fame members. That’s pretty damn good.
His lightweight resume isn't as good as the other two members of the lightweight trinity. However he beat the best that was available at the time. Esteban and Buchanan are either great or borderline greats depending on your criteria and how strict you are with the word "great." Beside those two he has some good wins over guys like Hector Thompson, Guts Ishimatsu, Ray Lampkin, Lou Bizzarro, Edwin Viruet, Vilomar Fernandez, etc.
nice post ... It's interesting isnt it? .. and I will add ...I actually think it was very impressive because I also factor in on how he dominated it in the fashion he did ... well, with that being said ..... He did the majority if his work there ... and if it was some walk in the park .. there is no way in hell he could have gone up and taken Prime SRL's title from him at Ray's best weight.... NO WAY .. imo..... so when you peel back the onion .. His LW resume and work there was impressive and prepared him perfectly to what was to come imo..... no scrutiny from me
Buchanan a good fighter, not a great. Let's not get carried away. DeJesus a fair fighter, nothing more... Too many fighters on this forum are overrated.
