Duran's Resume - One Of The Best Of All Time?

I go back and forth on Duran. He has perhaps the 2 best wins in boxing history (Leonard and Barkley) and many other good scalps. Even his loss to Hagler is impressive. But he's 1-4 against the best natural WWs he met, and all those losses were quite clear. Some were downright embarassing.

Robinson doesn't quite have Duran's wins, but he doesn't have as bad losses either and he had his tremendous streak of wins.

Charles has arguably better top wins than Duran, so he's also in with a shout.

But, yeah, Duran's resume is definitely one of the best.

 

In terms of competition and success against that competition Id rate Ali's, Charles, Moore's, Grebs above it but that might be about it off the top of my head. You could argue Burleys, arguably Robinsons

There are a few gripes with his resume: no Arguello at 135, No Cervantes, No Pryor, No McCallum, No Buchanon rematch, comparitively weak LW resume. And then there's the fact he went 1-5 against the other Fab 5 (but was older and smaller)

 

I'm a monster Duran fan, but I think the gap between his resume and the resume of someone like Ezzard Charles is too wide to say that Duran's is one of the best of all-time. Along with Ali and one or two others, he has one of the very top resumes of the past 40-50 years, but for me it is a level below the likes of Charles, Greb, and Langford.

 

Even is this is true (which I doubt), it doesn't change anything. Not "giving a ****" in so important fights is highly unprofessional and really not worthy of a top ATG. It's not in anyway a valid excuse.

I was mainly referring to Leonard II, but you won't see many in the top 10 being so thoroughly dominated when reasonably close to their prime as Duran was by Hearns. Yes, Hearns was a huge hitter, but Leonard, Benitez and others were much more competitive against him than Duran was.

 

Duran did give a **** in leonard II, leonard simply fought a much smarter fight the 2nd time and outsmarted and outboxed the bully and made duran look like a little child in the 7th round, so a deeply embarrassed duran couldnt handle leonard and quit. leonard deserves alot of credit for being the first to end durans long winning streak.

 

When did he slaughter Marcel? The fight was pretty even going into the last round, which was only stopped due to Marcel's unexplainable inactivity.

 

I always find it hilarious that the Leonard supporters are unwilling to accept any of the excuses given for Duran in the rematch (most of which are factual and fairly obvious), yet they're able to dole out excuses in Leonard's favor ("But....he didn't fight the right fight!") for the first fight as if it was common knowledge.

 

What's my agenda against Duran when I call his resume one of the very best ever?

Not being prepared for a major fight is never a valid excuse for defeat. That's child's talk. That he QUIT in the middle of the ring in one of the fights doesn't make it better. I don't care for excuses, these are losses no more no less.

I said Benitez was more competitive than Duran against Hearns, and he clearly was.

 

Mediocre winning resume.

 

I don't accept excuses for either man. I do think Duran's loss was much worse than Leonard's, though. But Duran's win was greater than Leonard's on the other hand.

 

I also find it funny that fans of Jones can't accept the viable and obvious excuses for Toney's performance when they fought. If you ever want to view a prime example of a weight drained fighter who's as sluggish as you'll see by his own standards, thats the fight to watch. Great performance by Jones nonetheless. At least Toney never quit. He was probably getting his ass whopped worse than Duran was against Leonard.

Duran's winning record against top fighters is damn solid. Not as good as other greats though.

 

On the subject of Duran, he did take some beatings, but none as bad as the one-sided asswhooping a peak James Toney took against Roy Jones. That must've been embarassing, to be in peak form and get slaughtered the way he did.