Did Roberto Duran

It was fun to watch him smash some relative novices in the early 90s. I think it was Terry Thomas whose nose he broke. However, the only fight I think it would be worth getting was Camacho I -which he friggin won and Leonard, commentating, proclaimed it far and wide. Duran was 45 and came in in probably the best shape since Barkley. He was actually ripped! He had barely any balance, but was surprising fast and fought a great tactical fight against a speedy, younger man. It was very impressive to see how this man's eye-hand coordination didn't fade as it should have.

Forget the Castro fights. They are both depressing.

 

I haven't seen any of these bouts, but a sixth round TKO over Mike Culbert was his final stoppage win, and the last defeat and only stoppage loss of Culbert's career. I'd imagine Roberto's rematch win over 29 year old Jorge Castro when Cholo was just about to turn 46 might make for very interesting viewing. But as Stonehands89 has seen him against Castro where I have not, I will defer to that judgement.

He avenged an injury induced stoppage loss to Pat Lawler from nine years earlier with a 12 round UD win for the NBA SMW title.

What's interesting about Duran's last matches is that he was still a world class boxer. Very few in the history of the sport have competed successfully against opposition the caliber of Castro with the huge amount of experience Duran possessed at that time. On one hand, he may have been a shadow of himself at the turn of the century. Then again, he had gone over ten years and 25 matches beyond the point where Ray Arcel said, "I think he may know more about boxing than I do!"

Just think about it. Duran knocked out several opponents who were not even born when he began his professional career against Carlos Mendoza in February 1968. (Mendoza himself proved to be one hell of a fighter. Over half a dozen years later, Olivares had to get off the deck to beat him. Over eleven years after Duran and Mendoza debuted against each other, Mendoza gave a peak Wilfredo Gomez ten rounds of hell in an unsuccessful title bid. He followed that up with a win over eventual WBC super bantamweight champion and television mainstay Juan "Kid" Mesa. Finally, he closed out his career in 1984 with a four match winning streak.)

Duran may not have looked especially good when measured against the best standards he set in his prime, but if he was competing as a masked boxer against opponents who similarly had an obscured identity, he would have still been judged to be a very good fighter.

Camacho couldn't take him out, and without a career ending car wreck, he could have easily gone out a winner in his 50's. That's the final point I'd like to make about Duran here. He was not forced into retirement by Father Time, or by any opposition in combat. He was not Muhammad Ali or Joe Louis, but still a very competent pugilist when not held up to the comparisons with his younger self.

 

Hey, is that the one where Duran correctly anticipated where the poor kid's nose would arrive at the same place and time as his right cross, which shoved his victim's nose halfway across his face from left to right? (I'd never seen somebody's nose pushed into a different location on their head like that before. If a boxer's truly dedicated to the sport, he ought to have his nose cartilage surgically removed so it can't be broken.)

Ultimately, that's the answer to the reason behind his longevity. Even if Muhammad Ali had always kept himself in top condition, he reported that his hand-eye coordination had deserted him for the Berbick fight, and that's what definitively established that he had to retire then, even if his desire had remained intact.

Carlos Ortiz was in top condition for Ken Buchanan, but again, his hand-eye coordination deserted him, so there was no question of his continuing to box professionally. Jersey Joe Walcott was in excellent physical shape for the Marciano rematch, but lost the count, and decided to retire because of his compromised ability to recuperate from a punch.

Duran was as much a freak of nature as Foreman, Panama Al Brown, Earnie Shavers, Ali, Archie Moore, Bob Fitzsimmons or Jim Jeffries. I wonder what his natural life expectancy might be.

 

Neither is Tex Cobb, or a great many old timers with hundreds of fights behind them.

Duran seemed to enjoy getting hit. The paradox is that when somebody isn't afraid of getting hit, they will be less likely to flinch, close their eyes, or self protectively wince into a shell. They're thus more likely to see punches coming, which better enables them to avoid that punishment. Duran actually looked for his opponent's punches. He got off on thinking about how they would freak out when their shots failed to do anything to him. It sometimes seemed that he charged into blows, and discovered himself actually slipping their efforts to score as a by-prduct of not being afraid to get hit. There are plenty of photographs floating around of Duran in action, with an adversary's fist making contact with Roberto's face, and Duran's eyes are open as the strike is connecting. He doesn't seem to have been the sort to ever fight scared.

 

The kid with the nose was a redhead and I remember seeing him dazed and with his head forward just letting it bleed. It was a beaut of a shot. The exact timing of that right that floored Paz was another example. Hell, even that right that gave Leonard 20 some odd stitches was monstrous -although it was one of the few shots he did throw and land. If that punch landed in round 3 instead of round 11, it would have been a TKO and Duran would have gotten the win. All the stuffing in the world wasn't gonna stop the flow of that cut.

Considering that this was a natural lightweight and began his career at 16 he may outdo them all. I also have to give him an edge because of the degree to which he changed his style over the years. Usually, busy swarmer and pressure type fighters have short careers. They do not morph into boxer-punchers at will and then morph into counterpunchers in the land of giants when they should be sitting fat in a Spanish bar playing bongos.

 

Inside of 10 years science may isolate the pugilistica dementia gene that increases the likelihood of a fighter becoming punch drunk. Duran doesn't have it. Hearns does. Holmes doesn't have it. Ali does. Marciano didn't have it. Bowe does.

 

Jake LaMotta certainly doesn't have it.

Crazy dude is 86.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OlEAlw1k7U&mode=related&search=

 

With that in mind, I hope Laila Ali calls it a career now that she's married. She's got nothing left to achieve in boxing, and possibly her father's predisposition to develop Parkinson's Syndrome.

 

Laila who? To be honest, I am not only old school, but old-fashioned enough to insist at least privately that boxing remain the last haven of chauvinism. I don't watch female boxers because there is no pleasure that I derive from watching breasts get punched.

 

I agree with this, and you may recall that this was also her father's attitude in the late 1970's, that females were not built for getting punched in the breasts. You might also remember that Floyd Patterson, then heading up the NYSAC was flatly opposed to the idea, saying that while he would give up his seat on the bus to a lady, he wouldn't extend that same courtesy to a female boxer. The bottom line is that she is only a major celebrity because of who her father is. Personally, I don't like the sight of pancaked noses and battle scars on females.

 

camacho 1 was a very good performance for a 45 year old

 

Davey Moore and Pipino Cuevas fights are good and they were late Duran.

 

Even more so when you consider that Duran had tons of streetfights and always said he was a much better street fighter than he was a boxer. Scary as that is.

I'm sure Leonard is glad he met Duran in a ring rather than an alley. It reminds me of when Ali decided to **** with Liston in a casino.

http://www.boxing-memorabilia.com/bioliston1.htm

Short version;

There are varying accounts of the exchange that followed, but they agree on the result, Liston scared the hell out of him. He walked up to Clay and smacked him in the face.

"What was that for?"

"Because you're too ****in' fresh!"

It was a miscalculation on Clay's part. He had picked the wrong battleground, Liston was from the streets, Clay was not. His arena was the ring. "I ain't gonna lie, that was the first time since I known Sonny Liston that he scared me. I just felt the power and meanness of the man I was messing with."

For once, the Greatest decided too keep his big mouth shut.

Wise move.

 

I don't want to contemplate Duran angry in a street fight. He could have maybe done good in MMA. He said he never started off as a boxer but actually wrestled in the streets.