was Roberto Duran overrated?

Duran is an all-time great...but i think duran is overrated in that many people call him the best lightweight of all time, but there's a lotta guys who would have beat him...some of them woulda beat him with ease. Duran struggled with esteban dejesus and ray lampkin...both pretty good, but not not close to being great.

dejesus dropped duran and beat him pretty easy in the first fight.

In the lampkin-duran fight, lampkin outboxed duran and was cleaerly winning after 10 rounds...then started to wilt from the fast pace and pressure, but was still competing on pretty even terms in the late rounds when he got dropped and stopped.

The point is, neither lampkin nor dejesus were that good...but their movement and counterpunching gave duran all kinds of trouble. Even robbie simms was able to beat duran even though simms lacked all klinds of talent.

Now, imagine if duran had to fight the likes of sweet pea, sugar shane, pacman, JM marquez, kostya tszyu, money mayweather, azumah nelson, aaron pryor, etc...He would be out of his league just like in the second leonard fight.


If you just look at the kirklang laing and benitez fights it reinforces the view that duran couldn't handle guys with lateral movement and counterpunching.

Duran beat davey moore...but moore only had like 9 or 10 pro fights at the time. Duran beat barkley, but barkley was really nothing more than a tough guy with limited skills...those wins don't enhance duran's status.

 

kids today know nothing of inside fighting and think boxing is only moving on the back foot. Maybe if lampkin or buchanan had hbo hyping their names you'd be more impressed.

 

Best 135 pound fighter of all time not even close, beat a prime leonard, beat barkley, over 100 wins, overrated? What ya smoking

 

The greatest latin fighter of all time? no.

 

If he lived today the standards would be different..In the past you could lose to 4-5 top fighters of the era and still be a ATG,and ranked so high,that would not fly today.

 

If you are a fighter in the past, SOMETIMES you do not need GREAT wins,as long as you beat one GREAT,Leonard,seems to be the criteria..Would a fighter today doing the No mas thing,and losing to all the P4P guys be great by todays standards?

 

This is my biggest problem with any Duran related conversation around here. There seems to be a very vocal collective of posters who insist on dismissing ANY critique of Duran as being either from 'ignorant fans', 'youngsters', or 'haters'. They are so vested in protecting Duran's legacy that they'll make any excuse for anything that doesn't fit thereve lost contact with reality.

For example, in one of the threads discussing Duran-Leonard II, there were Duran fans actually claiming that Duran was 'forced' into the fight, even though he had the leverage of a Hearns fight at his disposal. They claim Duran was bothered by having to lose so much weight, even though Duran had a history of ballooning up 40-50 pounds between fights going back to his LW days with minimum impact on performance. I even heard someone say he took the fight 'unprepared' and 'No Mas'ed himself because he expected a trilogy. Someone claimed Duran would never do a 'catchweight' fight, even though it is known he offered one to Aaron Pryor.

I mean, really.

Duran IS an ATG. No question. But he does not need fans here whitewashing of certain elements of his career (No Mas, long standing weight issues, sluggish performances against other great, and even mediocre, fighters. etc). He not need fans elevating him to Superhuman status just to take shots at current fighters.

I can somewhat understand this in response to troll threads, but this happens around any conversation with Duran. They seem more concerned with preserving the Mythology of Duran than the truth.

Just my thoughts.

 

I disagree with much of what you said. I agree that a loss is a loss is a loss and that occasionally Duran lost to mediocre fighters after the Leonard fight. The Kirland Laing fight was one of the worst showings I've ever seen by any ATG.

Where I disagree is that to me after watching the very documentary that Leonard himself starred in, Leonard himself said called his manager to set up a rematch ASAP once he knew that Duran was 40-50lbs over weight as his plan was to get Duran back in the ring ASAP, under the rematch clause that existed in the contract.

Now this came directly from the lips of Leonard himself, so why you would think people who said this are making it up is beyond me. This is what it says on Leonard's Wikipedia site:

After the Montreal fight Durán went on a partying binge and ballooned in weight. Leonard was aware of this, and in an interview for Beyond the Glory he said: "My intention was to fight Durán ASAP because I knew Durán's habits. I knew he would indulge himself, he'd gain 40–50 lbs and then sweat it off to make 147."

Now the only question I have is whether or not this was an issue when he fought as a lightweight. I can't seem to find that answer.

As for the catchweight comment, whether he offered to fight someone at catchweight or not, he never insisted that a fight had to be made for a title at catchweight as far as I know. I'm certainly not going down the path of speculating what may, or may not, have occurred for any fight that actually never took place. That's up there with those who slam Lewis for not having a rematch against Vitali because he offered him one in the heat of the moment. Unless contracts are signed it's all meaning speculation.

Just my thoughts.

 

TBH, this post basically proves my point.

You, a Duran fan, continue to talk of Duran's ballooning up as some special circumstance. Guessing that Duran would get out of shape is no great feat. He was KNOWN for doing this FOR YEARS. Leonard 'knew his habits' because everyone in the boxing world knew his habits. He was the original James Toney.

Here's an article (LINK) from 1972, where the same 'too much partying' excuse was used for a 22 year old Duran's loss to DeJesus (read how familiar it sounds)

Here's an article (LINK) from 1978, two years before Leonard I, talking about having to trick Duran to get in shape and the influence of partying in Panama:

Again, this shouldn't have to be shown to true Duran 'fans'. But it gets ignored when it conflicts with the mythology of Duran's invincibility.

 

are there any mods in this forum? i get that we will have people with varying degrees of knowledge of the sport....and there will be some questionable threads as a result of that...but this thread here...really?

 

Imagine how great he would have been if he wasn't doing rails and getting bombed everyday.

 

So the only great fighter Duran fought was Leonard???? GEEZZ you're even more clueless than i thought.

 

Your guy Pernell never beat on great fighter and hes rated close to Duran in most all time lists, if anyone is overrated is Whitaker, great fighter but doesnt deserve his high placing cause his resume doesnt match his ability.