Did Duran just have Leonards # that night, Or did Sugar just fight the wrong fight?

I remember watching the fight

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Damn hit send by mistake. I remember watching the fight and thought Leonard looked intimidated. I think Duran had him psyched out.

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He looked that way only after he absorbed a beating in round 2.

 

I'm not quite picking up the actual relevance of this to the picked out text?

 

Excellent post. Fighters are often looking after their own best interests. Other times they might be talking ****. Sometimes they might be bang on. You also get the fighter saying one thing but the trainer saying another, so someone is obviously full of it. Others time a fighter says one thing at one time and another thing later. You have to be careful what you take on blindly.

A SRL might say he made me fight his fight but in reality he might simply be covering up poor strategic choices by himself and his trainer. He might not want to admit Duran psyched him into his kind of fight by calling his wife names etc etc and having him furious. I'm very dubious on the x rounds to recover thing. It's a murky area.

People will quote what supports their own particular stance. Sometimes it will be valid material, other times not.

 

I agree with all of this.

 

I have no problem with that opinion, Goes along with what I've said about Leonard wanted to hurt Duran, not just defeat him.

 

Which is very believable after Duran's antics pre fight. They were genius.

 

SRL mentally destroyed Duran in that second fight.

Ok fine, "mentally destroyed" is over the top, but as far as a fight whereby I recall one fighter getting in another fighters head and obtaining the win via emotional methods (as well as physical) it ranks right up there as one of the best examples.

A great example as well of a boxer switching up game plans for a second fight :bbb

 

Absolutely. Duran got the better of it mentally first fight, amping up SRL right to where he wanted him. In the second fight Leonard was the one on top.

Leonard said before the second fight something about having gone to school in the first fight. It was a tremendous learning experience both mentally and stategically.

 

The big question is did he have to lose the first fight to know how to beat Duran in the second fight or was the first fight simply a poor strategy to begin with?

 

To be fair he had to lose the first fight, yes. It was probably multiple things that led it to run the way it did and credit cannot be taken away. Duran was too good and too smart in their initial encounter.

I firmly believe that the Duran of the first fight would have lost to the SRL of the second one.

 

Both

 

I completely agree with the first paragraph you wrote, but I'm far less certain about the second.

 

Well to be fair nobody can say it goes either way with any certainty. That's my belief, some will agree wholeheartedly and others will sneer.

I rewatched both bouts in the last few days so as to form my own personal "opinion". It's a tough one. Lets be honest - most will come down on the side of the fighter they like more.

Found some interesting quotes post match too -

Joe Frazier, ringside, was asked if Duran reminded him of anybody. It was a leading question, assuming that Duran’s ferocity would remind Frazier of himself. “Yeah,” Joe replied. “He reminds me of Charles Manson.“

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Roberto Duran: “He is the best I have fought. He hit me hard a couple of times, but I was never in bad shape. He was pretty good, but he had to be because he was fighting me.”

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Sugar Ray Leonard: “People questioned whether I could take the big punch. I showed them. I have to give Duran a lot of credit. He is the toughest man I’ve ever fought.“


Angelo Dundee: “You never fight to a guy’s strength. You try to offset it, and Ray didn’t. Duran was being Duran, and Ray was going with him.“


Obviously i come down on the side of Dundee.