Better win: Frazier over Ali or Duran over SRL?

This is a no-brainer: Duran's is the better win. How common is at that a fighter moves up a full weight class and beats a great champion smack in his prime? That a great champion loses when coming back after a long lay-off isn't at all as rare.

And even if Duran made Leonard fight his fight it doesn't make any difference. The pre-fight psyche games is a part of the whole thing and great fighters are often good at them as well.

In pure significance, Frazier's win is the greatest of course. But best, in the sense what it took to achieve it, is Duran's hands down.

Frazier's win is in that sense more comparable to Holyfield's over Tyson, seeing how Holyfield, unlike Frazier, himself was well past his best.

 

Duran feinted Leonard out of position in the second round and stung him.

As Ray did when he was unsure of how to proceed, he waited on making a solid adjustment. Against Tommy his opponents has tank allowed Ray a chance back into the fight, and he knew what he had to do.

Against Duran it didn't happen. Leonard didn't know what to do. Duran was the better man on the night.

 

:nono that´s Armstrong over Ross.

But here it´s a Duran Leonard.

Frazier-Ali is a Top2 hw victory though.

How is that myth still around. Leonard fought exaclty like he always did and he ffought exactly the fight he and Dandee wanted him to fight as proven by their own admission on film.

 

The long and short of it.

 

Thisgood

 

It's a great question.

The bare statistics give Duran the edge, coming up in weight as he did, threading together a marvellous performance over the full fifteen, however...

Outside the bare statistics there are home truths, just as there are inside a bullies psyche, and despite Ali's three year lay-off he showed more of himself there than he ever had. A 'lay-off' insists on a regression of some sort but it is difficult to give full credence to that theory because Muhammad beat Frazier half to death while he himself was beaten half to death in the process.

Fighters who have truly regressed, to a noticeable degree, shouldn’t be capable of providing one half of what is probably the great heavyweight tussle of all time.

Duran’s strategic, volcanic rushes will never bore, and it was a viscous battle, but on the brutality metre the ‘Fight of the Century’ has it. In the last twenty seconds you’ll see two men fight each other to a standstill.

It’s difficult to settle on either but there are little aspects going for Frazier over Duran, like Leonard’s comparative inexperience, and the fact many rate Ali above Ray.

 

The main thing to take from that is that Frazier in all likelihood wouldn't have beaten Ali when he was in his prime, which Leonard was in Montreal.

To put it in clearer terms: Imagine that Leonard doesn't go back into retirement in 1984. Instead he has another tune-up fight and then loses to Curry in an epic battle. Would Curry's win be seen as being as good as Duran's, even if Leonard went on to beat Hagler etc, just as he did in real life?

Duran's win should be compared to the hypothetical event of a LHW moving up to HW and beating Ali in 1965. Such a win would have been clearly better than Frazier's IMO.

 

That version of Frazier in Superfight 1 would have beaten any version of Ali , pre or post 67 , never seen before or since any fighter in a fight with Fraziers drive , will and determination as that night , Frazier never the same after - put a career into one fight.

 

ripshitty does it again.

 

Roberto Duran over Ray Leonard, without question.


Joe Frazier over Muhammad Ali was not that big of a deal, if you boil it down.

 

I'll have to think about this one carefully.

The fight of the seventies v the fight of the eighties,in my view.

 

Logic is with you here, but many believe (and with fair reason) that Ali had not regressed so much as he had changed. The fact Ali himself explained before the big night that he was a physically stronger customer and could now sit down on his punches better reinforces this theory of apples vs oranges.

The dancer from the 60's may have found it harder to deter Joe, and it's possible that his tough warm-up against Bonavena was the perfect preliminary for what was to come.

The analogy about Leonard and Curry is appreciated, though of course Ray looked a little vulnerable.

On paper Duran should have this, and technically he still may, but it's good to note the experience differential; Ali had already pissed blood against Chuvalo and fought at the world level for much longer.

 

FOTC not that big of a deal? Sweet jesus.

 

He was only 1 lbs heavier than he was against Chuvalo. Against Quarry and Bonavena he was at his best 60's weight - 2012. He was basically the same weight.

Also don't think he ever punched harder than he did against Williams. The double right he KO'd Folley with also packed as much power as anything he threw in FOTC.

The main difference was really that his legs weren't the same as before and never would be. His reflexes and timing - while still excellent - probably had taken a knock as well. He was still a great fighter and a great scalp, just not what he had been.

 

I believe if Duran came in the same shape he was in Montreal... it's a close fight and it could go either way. I don't think Leonard brawled too much. People think he fought Duran fight.. but that wasn't really the case. He said and his trainer said... We're going to take the center of the ring.. We have the bigger guy.. the stronger guy.. and they didn't believe the smaller duran could stand up to the bigger SRL. It's a misconception that SRL fought duran's fight.. he fought the fight he said he would fight and one he thought would work. Hearns win over duran was great.. no doubt. I just think if it went longer... Duran could've exposed Hearns chin... but never happened.