notice i never said anything about race...my entire post is about facts. but mfkers on this thread are tossing race and racism all over the place. Perfect illustration of "projection."
exacrtly...it's time somebody really took a hard, honest look at duran's career. how great was he really? they're calling him the best lw of all time....based on what? he as champ he defended 12 times mostly against a buncha no-names. the first time he went up against a top quality guy, esteban dejesus, duran got dropped and outclassed over 10 rounds....and dejesus was already a drug addict at the time. his second best opponent at lw was ray lampkin a guy who had lost twice to dejesus and never really excelled. yet lampkin outboxed duran easily for 10 rounds until he ran out of gas. duran moved up to ww because he outgrew the lw div... he faced a srl who was still pre-prime. who gave up ALL of his natural advantages...and who elected to stand flat-footed and trade punches with duran....and many including the NY times thought srl WON! if duran was such a great, great slugger, breathing fire and steam and all that, shouldn't he have stopped or badly hurt srl or backed him up constantly? but no, it was srl backing duran up....it was srl hurting duran and landing the cleaner harder punches. duran won that fight by crowding srl and bulling him against the ropes....that was what convinced the judges. but then in the rematch, srl DOMINATED duran with boxing...exposed duran and made him quit. after that it was all downhill. benitez beat duran with EASE. hearns CRUSHED duran. hagler won a wide decision. and srl won EVERY ROUND in the rubber match. not to mention the laing and simms fights. think about that.... if fmj and moved up from super feather to ww and LOST to dlh, and LOST to ssm and LOST to canelo. then got KO'd by cotto at jmw, then went on to LOSE more fights to ortiz and guerrero, would be calling him the greatest ANYTHING? no!...we'd be calling him a BUM. well, that's exactly what duran was...an OK fighter with a crowd-pleasing style and a huge fan base. of course most of his fan base came from "beating" a 50% srl which is really a win for srl more than it is for duran. think about it, if duran struggled with dejesus and lampkin and if srl and benitez could outbox him so easy, he would have lost to guys like ssm, fmj and sweet pea. in fact, i doubt he would have been able to make it past jmm...even fellow brawlers like pryor, arguello and jcc would have put him to the ultimate test. he never fought anybody like those guys at lw. no, he wasn't the greatest lw of al time....i rank him #7 among the all time lws, behind fmj, pea, ssm, pryor, armstrong and arguello.
dude, just come right out and say you hate srl and you're all about duran beat him because you don't like the black guys....just say it and people will respect you a lot more.
You really should be banned from this board for lack of intelligence and knowledge. There's an alternative room titled "For those who's total knowledge of boxing can be written down on the back of a postage stamp,post here" You should be in it, in fact you could be an administrator.
I've been into boxing for over 30 years, which is most of my life. During that time we've had a lot of great fighters, but if I had to chose the very best boxer I've ever seen in my own lifetime then it's Roberto Duran. The OP's comments about Duran taking a lot of punishment are woefully inaccurate. Duran was incredibly skilled both offensively and defensively, he constantly put himself in harms way and barely got hit with anything meaningful at all. Duran was a tremendous boxer, an awsome puncher and a joy to watch. What more do you want? I can't understand why anyone has a problem with him.
you best believe if duran was fighting today he would be getting no fights no one would go near him and i wouldnt want my son in the ring with that man