Greatest victory of the 4 Kings' fights with each other

It was by far the worst shape he had ever been in.

He was no longer the lean, fast, and coordinated killer we saw from 1972 to 1980 — he looked like a redneck dad, fat as hell.
The jab that Duran had slipped, parried, and countered masterfully throughout all 15 rounds of the Montreal bout was now something he could barely react to. He fought gassed from start to finish. When he did try slipping, it lacked the natural fluidity and sharpness he displayed in Montreal — instead, it looked like he was forcing his body and head downward, struggling even with that.

The jab–left hooks he occasionally threw — once precise and fast — now resembled slow haymakers, like a drunk swinging wildly in a street fight. It looked as if he were dragging his fists, as if they were too heavy for him.

The jab-overhand combos that he ducked under gracefully in his previous bout with Leonard, were now arriving easily at the face of Duran cause he could not PHYSICALLY do anything about it (except blocking, but i don't recall Duran ever using a high guard to block punches during that stage of his career, or after)

Even the shifting right hands he used in this fight looked awful. It's a punch that, by design, puts you slightly off-balance to cover distance quickly and surprise your opponent — or to add more power. But when Duran threw it in the rematch, it looked like he was just trying not to fall. Even when he did land the punch, it was the only time in his entire career where he looked that atrocious while throwing his signature punch.

Of course, you might see things differently as i do, nothing wrong with that, everyone has their own point of views in boxing
Thank you for making me write all this, i really like chatting about Duran

 

Absolutely SPOT ON--OUTSTANDING analysis!! (You watch both of those fights back to back and it's almost shocking how much Duran deteriorated in that short time frame between Montreal and New Orleans! He partied his a$$ off after his magnum opus performance in the 1st fight and he came into the rematch sluggish and a shell of the fierce pit-bull he was previously.)

 

Haha, I’m guessing you haven’t seen Duran vs. Zeferino Gonzalez?

This is three months after Palomino (Ray I to Ray II was five months) and Roberto was puffy, even paunchy, as he waddled around the ring having great difficulty against a virtual nobody in a 10-round decision that wasn’t a gift (a lot of boos when it was announced) but was closer than the near-shutout Duran had on the cards.

Roberto was 149 1/2 pounds and Freddie Brown said he only trained three weeks. This Duran missed badly, got hit cleanly with straight rights (especially in the middle rounds) by a journeyman and seemed off-balance a lot of the time. It wasn’t a matter of being slightly off or just not quite precise … he was laboring. Roberto was competitive against Leonard in the rematch, barely behind on the scorecards — this version of Duran doesn’t win a round against that Leonard.

Go find the video, it speaks for itself.

There’s another fight when he was lightweight champ after DeJesus III where Roberto scaled 151 for a fight against a nobody in Panama. If he trained three weeks for Zeferino, he probably didn’t train three minutes for that one.

The No Mas version of Duran was definitely not the worst shape he had entered the ring in up to that point in his career.

 

Ray didn’t let him do the things he did in Montreal.

 

That's certainly true--SRL fought a much different fight in the rematch. But compare how Duran looked in Montreal vs New Orleans. He was in superb condition and as razor sharp as you could get in the 1st fight. In the rematch he was flabby and sluggish--nowhere near what he was just a few months earlier!

 

I remember watching the first 4 rounds a long time ago whilst cruising through Duran's boxrec and shrugged it off as a tune up match mid performance, i'll rewatch it later to give my veridict

For the 151 bout i think you mean the Ezequiel Obando fight, tried searching for footage of it a long time ago cuz it also stuck me as weird seeing Durán fighting whilst being that heavy, the most logical conclusion is that it was a tune up fight to stay active, his team was very notorious for doing that.

i wouldn't count it as the worst version of him cuz well he got the job done in 2 rounds and just 3 months later he delivered a very good performance against Monroe Brooks

 

I don’t see how his performance against Monroe makes him a better version than he was like 11 pounds heavier (he obviously was escorted back to the gym) and Roberto knocking out a guy with like a 1-3 record when he was like 60-something-and-1 makes him a better version. Duran of Leonard II stops any 1-3 guy as quickly as he wants.

And you can see a big difference in energy, reflex and general body shape of Duran of Zeferino vs Duran of Leonard II. He’s getting tagged in the middle rounds by a very average guy. Leonard was not a very average guy and we was up like 4-3 in the rematch before Roberto quit.

 

I don’t think by body contour there’s a difference between Duran of Leonard two and Duran of Palomino, which is his second-best performance at welter, and not be a large margin behind Montreal. It was a masterclass.

There’s a thread on the myth of No Mass on here somewhere, and me (and I think a few others) dug back to find reports that settle the timeline of Roberto’s camp and what people were saying about him, where he trained, how many weeks, etc.

After he quit, a new ‘we need to give him excuses’ narrative took hold.

Everybody gloms on to Leonard saying he knew Roberto was partying and wanted the rematch quickly, but they ignore that Ray also said (then and consistently since) that he went to Hawaii after the first fight, thought about retiring, then went for a run and called Mike Trainer and said he wanted the rematch — didn’t care about money split or anything else, get him back in the ring with me asap.

 

Imo,even from allat debate about Leonard vs Duran II being a greater win than the first fight,I somehow would still think about the first.

I know I'm a Duran fan,I know I could be biased,but two boxers at their peak taking the fight seriously performing at their best is better than one peak boxer vs one underperforming man.

 

But that just illustrates the point--Leonard basically stayed in fighting trim throughout the interval between the 1st and 2nd fights. Duran ballooned to 180lbs!! When you have to shed over 30 pounds of weight in a condensed period it has to have an affect.

Plus (and perhaps more importantly) Duran didn't have that same intense fury for the rematch that he had in the 1st fight. In Montreal-Duran was like a Marine fresh out of boot camp-he could chew nails and spit rust!! That level of intensity wasn't there in New Orleans.

 

#01: Duran vs Leonard 1
#02: Leonard vs Hagler
#03: Leonard vs Hearns
#04: Hagler vs Hearns
#05: Leonard vs Duran 2

 

1. Duran/Leonard 1

2. Leonard/Hagler

3. Leonard/Hearns 1

4. Hagler/Hearns 1

5. Hearns/Duran

I rate Duran/Leonard 1 the highest due to Duran being a former Lightweight with small dimensions being only 5'6 and he beat a prime Leonard without controversy.

Leonard/Hagler I rate highly due to Leonard coming back from a huge lay off but not as number 1 due to the controversy of the decision.

I rate Hearns/Duran as the lowest because Hearns had too many advantages over Duran in height/reach it was nigh on a mismatch. But I still rate it highly due to the nature of the win destroying an ATG in 2 rounds is still a very significant win.

 

My points are:

1) The amount by which Duran was diminished at the very least has taken on mythical proportions to the point of exaggeration over time to the point where some Roberto supporters act like Ray was in the ring kicking a newborn kitten. I think if that Duran was fighting anyone but Leonard or Hearns among contenders at the time probably has a ton more success and thus gets into the flow of the fight and beats them. He was never able to get started and gather any momentum and that’s as much on Leonard neutralizing him as itI is on Roberto.

2) Some want to act like Duran was hoodwinked, went out to a party and woke up the next day to learn that he was fighting in a couple months and did not have time to prepare. Trainer at Ray’s behest called Roberto’s team within a couple weeks — certainly less than a month — after the first fight to begin arranging the rematch, and it’s not credible to think Duran somehow never got the word until it was too late. Any partying he did after that call is on him not being professional.

It also ignores how many times he had to lose massive weight or undertrained during his lightweight title reign. Several of his wins he admitted to same (Ray Lampkin: If I had trained, he’d be in the morgue not the hospital, for instance) so this wasn’t unusual for him. He also knew that he’d need to defend the welter title fairly soon, that champs got stripped for inactivity without an injury and were expected to defend several times a year — he won the title in June: surely he didn’t expect that he could sit on his duff until the next year or the spring. That he needed to put his title on the line against a contender was not a surprise to him.

3) The simple fact that Ray so dominated Duran mentally that he quit in the middle of a round with no injury or other reason than he was at the midpoint in the fight and saw things were so not going his way that he opted out when he was considered the most macho fighter in the world and the least likely fighter ever to quit like that. Any way you like it, that’s still a remarkable win.

 

I wonder whether Roberto's fans would cut Leonard slack if he had intentionally also eaten too much junk food and lost it to level the playing field before the fight.

 

Whom do you rate higher: Leonard or Duran?