Poll.. Who do you rate higher p4p. Roberto Duran or Muhammad Ali?

I have Duran 2nd in my all-time list and Ali 5th.

 

If Duran visibly **** himself and kept going to a losing decision i'd have him P4P #2. If he shat himself and still won the fight i'd have him P4P #1!!!

 

I feel that Duran pehaps gets a bit of special treatment in some other areas as well. Ali's bad treatment of Frazier has been discussed thoroughly on this forum, and some have even seconded Frazier's suggestion that Ali's present condition is just desserts for what he did.

But how about Duran towards Leonard? Publically insulting a guy's wife like Duran did is something I never heard of anywhere else. And that makes his quit job in the rematch that much more disgraceful.

If you've told someone that you're gonna fukk his wife as soon as you've fukked him up, then you don't walk out on that guy to avoid taking a humiliating beating. Nothing I ever heard of in boxing or any other sport comes close to Duran's cowardice here. And still he's considered a bad ass.

His unsportsmanlike behaviour at the end of the fights with Benitez and Hagler doesn't help his cause either.

 

I'm actually surprised how many favour Ali considering the criteria. The question isn't who is the better boxer, nor is the question who had a better career, or fought better comp.

The question is who is a better p4p fighter.

To me this definately depends on which fighter fought bigger men then themselves and won convincingly. So yes moving through weight divisions matters. If Ali beat a lot of fighters bigger than himself that would matter too. But it seems if I had to choose between those two options, Duran gets the nod.

Not to dwell on boxrec, but if one does a quick review is shows that Ali frequently outweighed his opponents, some, such as Foster, by as much as 40lbs. Patterson was also significantly outweighed. (ie by about 30 lbs)

No disrespect to Ali, but I'd actually vote Holyfield as a better p4p fighter than Ali.

In short, Ali may be the greatest heavyweight ever, but he's not necessarily the greatest heavy on a p4p basis. I'd go with fighters such as Holyfield and Dempsey over Ali in this particular category.

 

I disagree - I think Duran may have been a round down, and the round previous to him quitting was his best round. But Duran would have gone on to lose that fight anyway - he was not in good shape.

None the less I'd pick Duran here, at Lightweight he was exceptional, and he moved up to fight exceptional fighters that where far bigger than him, his career spanned 5 decades! As a lightweight he could do everything.

 

Ali never quit and beat abundance of top 30 heavies

 

Its Ali for me.

Duran was a great fighter but not only did he "no mas" againest Leonard but he was losing againest people like Kirkland Laing in or near his prime.

 

You can say that both Liston and Foreman (two of his best wins) were both about 10 lbs above Ali's best (natural) weight. So that's about the same difference as when Duran, a natural LW, beat Leonard.

 

I not a fan for p4p conversations because it’s so vague. What’s a p4p skill? If you ask me everything is, including work ethic, durability, heart, and ring generalship. Yet, when fans talk pound for pound they seem to focus mostly on speed, skills, and power.

Duran was as ATG light weight, but as he moved up, he had the dubious distinction of being knocked out by one punch early in a fight, and quitting. Has any top p4p guy had the same negatives?

 

Let's say that there were another two divisions in Ali's day: 215-230 and 230+.

Ali, having no lay-off, moves up to 215-230 in his late 20's and records a string of victories before taking on the guy who's nr. 1 in the division and who will be a future great. Ali beats him in a famous battle, but quits a losing effort in the rematch.

After that he moves up to 230+, looses clearly to one of the top guys (who's a natural 215-230) in the divsion and then loose to a pretty average fighter. He's now in his early 30's. He records a couple of wins before going up against the champion and loosing in a game effort. The next fight is against one of the other top guys, and Ali get's brutally KO'd in a one-sided affair.

But he picks himself up again and wins a piece of the title when he's 38. He looses against his old rival in the next fight, and continues for another 12 years, mixing wins and losses.

Would you have Ali higher than you have him today?

 

Of course, it should be taking into consideration that Ali probably would have had a greater reign behind him when he moved up than Duran had at LW.

 

Fighters at heavier weights can stay good longer. Don't see too many 40-year old bantamweight champs.

 

Ali is the greater fighter. I have him a few spots ahead of Duran. Ali at about 6 and duran at 9.