The seamless transition of defense to offence and vice versa. Just beautiful to watch when in full flow
This - some of the work against Palomino and SRL in Montreal is so subtle, so highly polished that you only really see it properly in slow motion. I'll go you one step further on the last sentence - he sees, understands and executes what is possible better than any fighter filmed in colour.
I think where he is most superior to others is his use of feints to set up offense. Go look at his fights and see how many times he strings together multiple feints to basically reduce the opponent to a cringing ball tied up in knots before actually attacking. He sells his feints to the point that they look no different to an opponent than a real attack, so they react and then he has them vulnerable before unleashing his actual fury.
I wrote a piece on Duran's style some time ago on Quora of all places (Do not recommend if you want a adult conversation on boxing), there isn't just one attribute that stands out the man was the complete package if there ever was one. _________________________________________________________________________ Question - How was Roberto Duran boxing style? Aggressive counter puncher first, when people hear the name Roberto Duran the first thing they think is that he was a brawler which is wrong, he’d move forward throwing feints, make his opponent throw and then capitalize on their mistakes, usually in brutal fashion. He could also box with the best of them because his IQ in the ring was unmatched, which builds into him being a counter puncher because he knew exactly how to to bait his opponent, get them to throw what punch he wanted, how to punish them for it and then move into close range which brings me too Inside boxer, his body punching, defense and tactics on the inside were incredible, for me he is the number 1 inside boxer of all time, if you want to learn how to fight on the inside then study Manos De Piedra because what he did in the phone booth is beautiful, for me the only people that come remotely close to his level of skill in that range are JCC, Henry Armstrong, Mayweather, James Toney, Ezzard Charles, Eder Jofre and Jose Napoles but Duran is the clear leader, a genius and a pleasure to watch if you know what to look for. Relentless. Duran, despite the stereotype of being a counter puncher (not throwing a lot and staying on the back foot) he obviously loved to fight and knew how to push the pressure on his opponent, he delivered a high output which never wavered over 15 rounds, he piled on that pressure with no rest. A boxer, his usual forward pushing style shouldn’t take away from his ability to fight on the back foot and just outbox his opponent I guess I’m just trying to say in whole that Duran’s style was as complete as it comes, an incredible offense, an incredible defense, incredible footwork, watching him fight in the ring is akin to watching Picasso paint, every stroke has meaning as every fist Duran threw did and even if at first it’s rough, in the end it hits the mark and all comes together.
The facts that there are at least a half dozen attributes listed here is why Duran is generally ranked as one of the 5 pound for pound fighters in all history. I'd have him at 3 behind Robinson and Greb, but I've always loved Roberto so I am biased.
Knowing which punches and combinations to throw and when to use them. He was great at exploiting an opponents flaws and overcoming their strengths.
Roberto is the best ever. Ham and eggs eating ability off the charts. Seriously there's no one thing you can really pick out.
He had so many skills as noted above and I would include his defense and unconventional movement and feints. I would have loved to see Duran vs Mayweather at 135.
