A Case for Ray Leonard being rated over Duran - An Analysis

All those guys Hearns,Leonard,Benitez went out of their natural weight class and past thier prime. Hearns beat Virgil Hill past his prime and beat a guys who was undefeated. Duran didn't do this magical thing at all when he moved up, he actually lost to all the legends he fought, and those were the best guys he ever fought, and all he had to say after was that he was out of shape. Everytime.

 

He also started his career at 119 pounds,peaked at 135,and was past 30 with over 70 fights when he joined the Fab 4.None of the others had 70 fights over their whole careers.When he fought Leonard,he was 12 pounds above prime.When he fought Benitez and Hearns,he was well over 30,almost 80 fights into his career and fighting 19 pounds above prime.And by the way,Leonard gets far more credit for "beating" shot Hagler than ANY of Duran's wins.

 

What about beating Moore and Barkley to win world titles at 154 and 160 when in his 30s (38 for the Barkley fight)?

All the legends Duran fought were bigger and younger than him, its no wonder his record in that "series" looks poor at first glance.

 

No problem!!:good

 

True about the excuses.Duran actually made an excuse even when he won.Against highly regarded Ray Lampkin,after knocking him out in the 14th round,he said,"If I were in shape,I would have killed him."However,Duran beat Leonard and Palomino at 147.I think that that is far more impressive than Hearns(who is a better p4p fighter than Hill anyday) beating Hill.

 

OK,reasonably,then.Answer a simply question as honestly and logically as possible.Especially after knowing who called ALL of the shots during that period of time,and after talking about fighting Hagler for at least 6 years,and after having a party in his honor at his hometown arena JUST to announce his retirement only to come back again,and after "retiring" again after looking mediocre against just decent welterweight Howard,why,oh why did Leonard choose to call Hagler out after all that time and all those events,in '87 after all of the hubris?

 

He sent Lampkin to the hospital. When asked if he hit him with his best shot he said 'No, If I had he wouldnt be in the hospital, he'd be in the morgue.'

 

Thanks,Dirt:good

 

Duran started his career at 16 years old so he was smaller and grew into a man. So he started at 119. That is insignificant. He won his first title at 135 when he was 21 years old. And he was fighting at 154 as early was 1978 in tuneup fights, so fighting as you say at 147 is really so far above? He was losing weight to fight at lightweight, but his weight was probably perfect at welterweight in 1980. These reason's Duran fans use are again far fetched. Duran was well over 30 when he fought Benitez? 6 months is well over 30? and he was 32 when he fought Hearns, the same age Hearns was when Tommy beat Virgil 30 pounds above his first title weight.

 

Not really since Ray did not fight his fight and then won the rematch. You really think Virgil Hill would have beaten Hearns in the rematch? Tommy would have outboxed him again. Duran is being overrated. It is very obvious.

 

If Leonard is better than Duran , Floyd is better than Leonard , as Floyd has never been beaten (like Leonard) and came out of retirement to totaly dominate the no 2 PFP fighter in the world.

:good:good:good

 

Floyd never fought anyone, Ray fought 4 ATG fighters and beat them all.

 

Are JJM, Oscar and Mosley ATG's, if so and Floyd wins that is three ATG's without any embarrassing losses.

 

Look this is really dumb. What's the best way to find out who is the best fighter? How about this - they acually fight each other atsch
Duran and Leonard fought three times and SRL won two of them. Maybe I'm drawing the wrong conclusion here but based on the evidence this means that SRL is the better fighter.

Or...........let's look at common opponents....................Hagler, Hearns, Benitez for example. Look I know you love Duran and he was a truly great fighter..................just not as good as SRL...........No matter how you look at it.

atschatschatschatsch

 

Oscar is great and Shane is great. Let him beat Shane first. I think he will beat Shane with boxing, but it still has to be done. JMM is not great. Fighting guys at the right time is JMM's career story.