Opinions of old-timers back in 1980 on Duran as a lightweight. Interesting indeed.

I think Duran's Lightweight status is coloured by his wonderful acheivments at higher weights,his competition at Lightweight was nothing exceptional, imo.

1Leonard
2Gans
3Williams
4Duran
And the likes of Brown and Ortiz would give Roberto all he wanted.

 

Every great fighter goes through this while his career is still in progress. I just finished with a poll on here asking posters if they felt Roy Jones was a top 10 all time great lightheavyweight. The result was 75% yes and 25% No. Should I decide to conduct the same poll in 15-20 years, my guess is that the number of Y's will increase.

 

Thanks for that. As others said, all this shows is that current fighters are never estimated at true value until they're retired for a while.

Of course, this is a special case because he was going to accomplish things at higher weight classes, although unflattering losses like the Hearns fight had not happened yet, either.

 

Nevertheless, it just goes to show us how human nature works and how horribly biased people can be. Even if Duran had never ascended to the middleweight ranks, he had a significantly dominant run at lightweight along with some signature wins at welter, and it should have been plenty to give him a more reasonable rating. Lennox Lewis went through the same **** several years ago. There were few who credited him as being a top flight great, and now he's on some people's top 5. I am absolutely convinced that given time, Roy Jones' stock value will rise as will Floyd Mayweather's.

 

Haven't seen the book I read it in the Ring

 

You have to admit, they make points about his opponents in comparison to a guy like Carlos Ortiz's opponents on a regular basis. Duran did prove himself head and shoulders above the rest though.

 

Old timers are fun to read, but their desire to glorify their past - and the past itself - leads to legend-making, not objective analysis.

Benny Leonard was great. A fight between Leonard and Duran would have been one for the ages. Canzoneri, Ambers, Armstrong, Ross - we would love to see them in the ring with Duran. And they all would have been competitive. But the notion that they were so much better than Duran is ridiculous. We have the films. We can watch and compare. We also know their opposition and, while it is definitely true that Duran's opposition wasn't the greatest, the same can be said of other periods in which the legends fought.

The question we have to ask ourselves is whether Duran would have been as dominant in a talent-rich era as he was in the relatively talent-poor era in which he actually fought. It's hard to imagine he wouldn't have been. And some of the names mentioned would likely not see the final bell against Duran. Beau Jack and Ike Williams are two names that come to mind.

I rank Duran number one on the grounds that he lost only one fight in his 70 some fights as a lightweight, was so thoroughly dominant, and he looks great on film. The 12 title defenses is impressive as a record, but a lot of those who challenged him were not that good. That's the truth and it's relevant.

If I were to rank lightweights, Benny Leonard easily makes it into the top 10. Tony Canzoneri and Barney Ross are up there, too, although Canzoneri's best was at featherweight. But there are more modern lightweights who need to recognized, too. It seems inappopriate to not have Julio Cesar Chavez in the top five, for example. Carlos Ortiz should be way up there, too.

 

Some things to bare in mind, I suppose in 1980 Leonard wasn't seen as a great fighter, more a young flashy upstart, so what if Duran beat Leonard, then losing to him, thats even worse. Then aside from Dejesus and Buchanon wins at LW Duran is pretty thin on the ground, and back then Dejesus and Buchy probably weren't rated that high, because Duran wasn't either

 

No doubt about that. :good I already rank both very high, although my knowledge of the lightweights (Mayweather jr) is not as deep as it should be, i think he ranks among the very best and would hold certainly hold his own.

 

I agree about Leonard PP...the gravity of that win probably wasnt realised till later on.

But Kenny and Esteban had already did their best work by that stage..Kenny faded and almost retired. So surely they would have rated them on the their merits at that stage, which were pretty bloody good.

 

That's right. Sweet Pea was there with his camera filming the action

 

TBH you have to mark Duran down for beating Buchanon on a foul and not rematching him, he would of won anyway, but still.

Then Dejesus got dominated by Cervantes, who himself clearly wasn't as good as Prime Loche who in turn possibly lost to Ortiz when they fought (A-B-C Logic but still...). And Dejesus went 1-2 with Duran, maybe that was seen as a blk mark against Duran rather than a plus :huh

The main problem is the lack of depth in the 70s LW division

 

i diagree strongly on your statement about his opposition at lightweight. duran beat two great fighters in de jesus and ken buchanan

these are boxers who were unfortunate to come along at the time they. these two would be up there with the great lightweights if they had come around in another era

THis **** has gone on since the beginning time. everyone from every era has a tendency to grossly overate there heroes

 

Comparably it isnt strong but watching other fights of the contenders at that stage, you could see they were quality fighters. Its just Roberto wasted no time in becoming the man of the division and he was so dominate he made the era look weak. I dont think it was that bad to tell you the truth.

I dont know if I mark down Roberto for not rematching Ken..but another less tainted win over him would have been better then nearly all his other defenses. He doesnt get another gold star sticker on his report at lightweight .