'When I first agreed to train Duran, he was right hand crazy. I kept trying to tell him he had to set up the right, but it was like talking to a deaf man. One day, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and said, 'Roberto, I want you to hit Freddie [Brown] with the best right hand you have.' He looked at me like I was crazy. 'I no hit and old man,' he said, and started walking out of the room. So I started flapping my arms like a chicken. That got him mad, and he threw a wild right at Freddie. Freddie ducked, and slapped him on the face three times before he knew what had hit him. Now he was really mad, and he almost took the door off the hinges. But the next day in training, he threw some of the most beautiful lefts you've ever seen. And he grabs me later and smiles, 'Now I have nothing to worry about. Now I am a man with two hands.'' - Ray Arcel
"The disciplined decorum of left handed boxing is far more efficiently refined, and beautiful, than mere fanciful right handed swinging." - Roberto Duran, probably.
Duran wouldn’t say that, he was already a beast when Arcel met him. I was there in the trenches looking after Duran with my great friend Plomo Quinones, between the two of us we were responsible for Durans style, not Freddie or Ray. Sometimes you can’t trust what people say.
