Duran's best wins at lightweight and how he rates at that weight?

Cheers, Jel

 

either #1 or 2 all time. He was the human version of Secretariat and that is a huge complement

 

Hi Buddy.
Lots of interesting points and observations many of which I agree with, just a small caveat ( for me ) regarding Duran's first fight with Leonard, much has been made of this, and you yourself state the way Duran " handled " Leonard, but I view the fight has a huge error on Rays behalf, at the time Duran was seen ( quite rightly ) as the macho, man o man, the fighters fighter, whilst Leonard was viewed as the pretty boy, the fancy dan boxer, who would not be able to go to war, get in the trenches with the bad boys, not unlike Ali to a degree, and who knows maybe Robo, so I believe that Leonard wanted to prove the naysayers wrong by indeed going to war with Duran, which he palpably did, and lest we forget only lost by a round ? quarter of a point, can't remember, having proved his point to all and sundry, the next time he boxed and moved like a dream, and posted a very easy win, I am firmly of the opinion had he fought the 1st fight like this, he would have won going away, how can it not be ? .
So the W on Duran's record really does not tell the whole story, in my eyes.
For whats its worth, I also have Duran as my No 1 LW, followed by Leonard, then Gans, gets a bit tricky after then.
stay safe guys.

 

That don’t make sense. If he was at his best at lightweight yet you don’t rate him the best lightweight then how can he be p4p better than those who are better than him in the division when he was p4p at his best?

 

I think Roberto Duran is the greatest lightweight who ever lived, he was like a force of nature at 135 like a hurricane or cyclone . First time I saw him I knew I had seen something different. I rank him at lightweight the way I rank Ray Robinson at welterweight. Duran's ventures into higher weights cements him as an all time top 5 pound for pound in boxing history

 

Because for my Lightweight rankings I only factor in fights that were contested at or around the Lightweight limit. I don't credit Duran (or anyone else) for wins at Welterweight and Middleweight, for example, when ranking my greatest ever Lightweights. It's not the only or even the definitive criteria to follow, but it wouldn't make sense to me to factor in a fight contested at Middleweight, for example, when ranking the best ever lightweights.

P4P rankings are obviously based on every fight a boxer contested, regardless of the weight division.

 

I actually think Carlos Ortiz would have beaten Duran head to head and Ortiz was a tremendous boxer that never gets mentioned ever.

 

I don’t know that I’d say Ortiz would beat Duran (I’ll entertain the thought, however), but I agree on the rest of your statement. Splendid fighter.

 

I think that because hes one of the few who while not possibly as strong as Duran has enough strength to be succesful on the inside with Duran and could also box on the outside if he had to.

 

Duran set a record at that time by scoring 10 consecutive knockouts in world championship fights. The one guy who ended that streak was Edwin Viruet. I think Viruet was good contender.

Edwin tried to move, frustrate, taunt Duran but he took his beating like man. Overall this was one of Duran's better defenses outside of DeJesus and Ray Lampkin..

 

Duran is probably the best fighter I’ve seen on film at his peak (talking 135 and his early 147 performances). Just brilliant and if you don’t watch really closely you can miss how complete he really was.

But 135 is an extraordinarily deep division and some of the greats suffer through less quality footage than Duran has.

For mine he’s number 1 with Whitaker following on but I respect anyone’s opinion stating otherwise. It’s a stacked division.

 

McFarland's fight with Gibbons is on the tube. I think he lost that one. The papers had him winning though. A lot of people in the comments also scored it for Gibbons.

 

Ortiz is an ATG so it is always going to be a close fight, but even on the outside, I think, Duran is the better boxer. In theory, the best style against Duran is either slick counterpunchers like Dejesus or movers with a good long jab like buchanan, Laguna.

 

Part, but not all, of the fight footage remains. Of what remains, I agree that Gibbons seems to be edging it, by my eye.

Of the newspaper men that saw the whole fight live, iirc, 14 scored for McFarland, 8 for Gibbons and 3 as a draw, which suggests a close fight that could have gone either way, a remarkable achievement for a 2 year retired and inactive LW vs an ATG MW, albeit at a catchweight.