Who was the greatest fighter out of the fabulous 4?

I was neutral on Ray until I read your post.

Fancy not lifting a finger to help Roberto enhance his own ATG status. I mean, WTF Ray?

I’m now seeing what the haters have seen all along in Leonard - one self centred and extremely selfish basterd.

I’m actually quite angry now.

 

It's possible that I simply got it wrong and people were actually suggesting he overtrained rather than undertrained. It's been quite a number of years since I last discussed such matters on here mate.

I think we all admire Duran as a prizefighter, but it's always been quite obvious to me that he is held to a very different standard when compared to his contemporaries. Losses don't seem to count north of the Lightweight division and every excuse is made of cast-iron.

 

Yeah. He is the non-HW Mike Tyson.

Both tremendously gifted fighters, but they get passes no one else gets.

 

Paul McCartney, Ha Ha.

 

So many haters out there right now, so NOW you feel me eh?!?!?!?!?!?

 

You’re the first one to provide concrete rationale as to why Ray should be dimly viewed.

All previous arguments for same simply didn’t hold water.

I’m gonna bookmark your post so it is at the ready if, going forward, anyone ever asks me “What’s your problem with Ray?”

 

The fight wasn't signed until September 12, so where did that number come from? Eleta was still negotiating until then. Arcel usually showed up 2 weeks before the fight, it was Brown who was with Duran throughout the majority of the camp.

Additionally, This is a stretch. Duran looked much worse fighting than he did on any night up until then. Leonard didn't in Montreal. It's not the same.

 

I am not aware about his excuses for the Benitez fight. But I can see the propensity for excuses in the Duran camp. Duran is probably the only fighter coming up from featherweight/Lightweight who gets criticized for moving up 4-5 weight divisions and losing to bigger, younger men. That's the only version of the fighter that the majority remembers. In this thread alone we have had people throw p4p consideration to the side and evaluate the h2h record. If h2h record was all that was needed, why have this thread to begin with?

It's not like the Leonard camp is doing much better than excuses. Now suddenly, Leonard was poorly conditioned for Montreal which goes against everything that is commonly believed. Some were trying to turn Duran into a career welterweight, yet it is the well documented indiscipline on Duran's part that is so unbelievable to people.

I prefer Duran, but I sure as heck don't hate Leonard. He was a phenomenal fighter. But to say that all his biggest victories on paper were equal and all were without controversy would be an outright lie. Why should we make an exception for him when guys like Canelo get universally reviled on ESB for their shenanigans? I imagine it matters even more when evaluating the fighters in their prime.

 

Mrkoolkevin made a thread with newspaper clippings of reports that the camp started 3 months before.

Absoluteley not. Quite the opposite.

Leonard looked like a deer in the headights in the first. Way off. While Duran didn't look worse to me than in the Viruet fights.

 

Duran wasn't a Featherweight. that's like saying Barrera was a Super Flyweight or that Manny Pacquiao was a Flyweight.

No reasonable poster has an issue with people taking Duran's Lightweight record into account here, but the issue is we have some people who seem to think Duran was playing with house money once he moved up. That's to say that all of his wins count double and that his losses don't count at all because they were the result of a supposed size differential and not any disparity in ability. I don't subscribe to this nonsense. We don't apply this same logic to other fighters who moved up through the weight divisions whilst at the peak of their powers. It's not like Duran had a small cameo at 147lbs and moved back down, he would go on to win world titles at 154 and 160!!

Practically all fighters have made excuses for losses, but for some inexplicable reason it is only really Duran's that we are expected to take seriously. Do you accept that Duran lost fair and square in New Orleans and that he was just frustrated and outmanoeuvred? Much lesser fighters than Leonard had frustrated Duran with movement down at 135lbs, Viruet and Fernandez to name just two.

I prefer Leonard, but I sure as heck don't hate Duran. He was a phenomenal fighter. But to say that all of his biggest losses on paper were illegitimate and were all the result of a size differential would be an outright lie. Why should we make an exception for him when guys like Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao are universally judged for losses and poor showings whilst operating several divisions above their optimal weights?

 

When has Duran ever been critisized for losing at MW and SMW? Benitez and Laing were at 154, and Laing was pretty much a WW in the ring.

Pac was older and had moved up many more weight classes when he lost to JMM.

Who has said that? Never seen that claimed even once.

For ****s sake. Kovalev wasn't given even 2 months. Duran had 5, exactly the same time that Leonard had. Wake up.

 

SRL also whooped tbe's daddy

 

I know you guys are joking but I've always found these excuses to be ridiculous in all honesty.

If you're not prepared for a multi million dollar championship fight then that's on you, boxing is not a team sport it's an individual sport so the only one to ever blame is yourself.

Duran wasn't quite up to scratch ? Tough.

 

Link to the thread? The fight wasn't signed until september 12, and probably until later. Unlikely camp began before that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...rematch/80b5da9c-735b-49de-8cee-50776e5262f9/

Still ends on a cliffhanger.

Duran didn't have much trouble with Viruet. I have only seen some people mention that fight but Duran had no trouble finding Viruet for 9 of the 10 rounds. Even ignoring that, it was his 2nd boxing fight in 18 days. But you'll call that an excuse because anything that doesn't involve a 2 year layoff is not enough to justify an off-night (which it wasn't anyway).

 

Of course you can start camp while negotiations are still going on. Usyk did so just earlier this year, and Fury claimed he did (but of course had no intent of signing so actually didn't).

It was very clearly decided in that thread. Might be arsed to find it, but probably not if I'm honest.

I had the first fight very close, but I think Duran took the second one, which was a title fight, more seriously and won that clearly, but still couldn't get the KO. But that was Duran smack in his LW prime, and when I look at him I have no problems to believe that he'd have the struggles he had in New Orleas with a bigger and much, much better fighter.

So personally I don't at all get it what this "he didn't look at all like himself" comes from. Sure he did, he had just never met as good a fighter who actually utilised his movement (which Leonard didn't do in the first) before.