Roberto Duran vs Ernesto Marcel - Underrated fight (video)

Did you see "the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread"? I viewed & scored this fight earlier today, haha.

 

Yeah,quite unusual ending.

I felt like it could be Marcel gassing out though,just like how he did in the Arguello fight where he slowly fade.

 

I’ve never known quite what to make of the stoppage, but given the condition/lack of clarity of the film I have often wondered if Ernesto up close was beginning to look a bit like Meldrick Taylor at the end of the first JCC fight and the ref could see he’d been chewed up and spit out by this stage.

 

Yeah,it could've been like that,I still could've seen the situation of Marcel having nothing left in him for that 10th,he spent all he had left in the previous round,gassed and not even responding to any of Duran's punches the ref stops him.

 

I thought Marcel actually had a strong finish against Arguello. He did somewhat slow down in the mid rounds, but got a second wind in the 11th round and won remainder of the rounds IMO.

In regards to Duran fight, I thought Marcel won the 9th round. I didn't notice Duran land any particularly impactful punch that would really hurt him. His movement seemed fine in the 10th, but for whatever reason he refused to engage. I guess it is possible that Duran's body punches hurt him more than it looked on film. I really don't know. It was a really weird conclusion to the fight.

 

Yeah, Marcel looked tired vs Arguello but I think the second wind may be the difference of a green,pre-title Marcel vs Duran and the championship one.

 

In that final round vs Duran, he’d show some good footwork to gain some distance and Duran was at most cautiously aggressive — not the Tasmanian Devil we’ve seen him be, swarming all over — but then Marcel would just stop and kind of bend forward a bit with his hands high and let Duran do whatever without countering or firing back. Like sort of pitch a tent and say ‘I’m going to stand here for a bit, come in and do what you want.’

Maybe the ref saw enough of that and figured he was done. Or even said ‘c’mon, show me something’ and Marcel wasn’t responding.

No way to tell. One thing’s for sure — Marcel did not protest even a little.