Duran - Leonard I

when you fight a top notch fighter like Duran you can gain invaluable experience. Ray was top notch in everything but prefight games. Duran made him fight Duran's fight by insulting his wife. After that fight he learned to not fight the other guys fight or play the other guys game. That small knowledge which Duran taught him made him a much better fighter. 15 rounds of fighting Duran in a tough fight taught him how fighting his fight makes things much easier. Yes I thought Leonard was green and Duran made him a much better fighter. Duran made Ray fill in the weakness of that one aspect, which is the reason he lost the first fight. The post Duran Ray Leonard was the legend, not the pre Duran Leonard. And I think Ray would agree with me on this post.

 

Coming from the username Duranimal, why am I not surprised that you would respond in this fashion?

This was a close fight, in my opinion, both on the cards, and in terms of in ring action. I'm not the only who who thought that way, cause RING at the time scored the fight 8-7 for SRL. A few other scribes did as well.

Anyway, I currently score it for Duran,(but never by more than one or two points) but I take the opinion that anyone who scores it 8-7 for Leonard (especially given the fact that he took the final three rounds pretty clearly), should not be subject to tar and feathering.

It seriously grinds my gears when people seem to think that Duran spent the entire fight beating the **** out of Leonard, as many posts on the topics seem to imply. Clearly not the case. Call my a wanker if you want for thinking this way...I'll be happy to call you arrogant in return. Guess that leaves us back where we started, right?

Now, this "****", as you so were happy to describe me, needs to find his white stick...so that he can use it to point out further flaws in the arguments of Leonard haters on this and other issues.

 

Duran Rounds: 2,3,4,8,9,10,11.15
Leonard Rounds: 1,5,6,7,12,13,14

8 rounds to 7 for Duran. I could have given 15 to Leonard because he did work which would have changed the outcome. I did not score it for Leonard because he was not effective in my eyes. The first round I could given to Duran, but Leonard's little combination off the ropes was enough.

Some rounds were closed enough to go either way. 13 was the most competitive of the fight and it was great. Duran started off in complete control but Leonard finished stronger. The bolo punch round (14) was similar to 13. Leonard rounds.

Duran jumped out to a huge lead but Leonard closed it and almost wins on my card today.

Tomorrow is a different story.

Drew101, very intelligent post . Both of them. I have no problem with your outcome. Do you have the cards? If not, no sweat. I want to compare notes.

 

Similar to yours, although I tend to score the fifteenth in favor of Leonard and the first I usually just score even or give to Duran. Fifth is close, because Leonard gets his bearings back after getting hurt in the second,and does good work throughout but Duran still initiates many of the exchanges and presses the issue, giving him the appearance of still being in control. So five's also a swing round.

That means the range of scores that make sense to me when watching this fight is 9-6 Duran to 8-7 Leonard. But these days I usually score the first even, the fifth to Duran, and the final stanza to Leonard, making it 8-6-1 Duran on my card. But it's not out of the realm of possibility to have an 8-7 scorecard for SRL, imo.

 

I agree it was the best fight between all the fab 4, even over MMH-TH.... I think it has competition from Chacon v Limond 4 & Chacon v Boza-Edwards 2 tho for FOT80s.

 

For me it's one of the most high quality fights of all time, maybe number one in that respect. But there are other fights i might consider better, if that makes sense. For excitement Barrera-Morales 1 has always been my favourite.

 

Thanks.

One thing is I cannot bring my self to score an even round. Somebody had to win it. I usually give it to Leonard. I will compare your rounds with mine. I would like to see the cards of the guys who thought this was a one-sided beating.

It sounds like we basically agree on the merits of the bout. Like I said, I am cool with Leonard winning the bout. Either way he showed a lot of dumb guts by standing in the pit with Roberto.

Standing in the pit with Roberto...

 

Can't for the life of me see how anyone could score it for Leonard without being baised?

 

I think Duran blatantly coasted in the last 2 rounds.

Also I have tried to score it to Leonard but every time I can only get it to 10-5 to Duran.

IMO Duran won this clearly and it was not close.

 

Duran won the fight, no question. But the fight did for Leonard what the famous loss suffered by Tunney to Greb did for Gene.

As for Pacheco, the man is a c*nt - his comments in Thriller in Manila, for example, were a disgrace. Patronising, rude, disgusting.

 

You know, I haven't a lot of score cards on this topic. I think this would be a better conversation if we all put our cards on the table.

 

That's just not accurate at all. Maybe it's just semantics. Coasting to me implies a conscious decision to not fight. I don't see that at all. I see Duran tiring a bit from a furious pace and Leonard coming on. I wouldn't call that coasting. I think Leonard hurt him a little with 19 seconds left in the 14th round. And just to be clear, I scored it for Duran (a little closer than 10-5).

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc8aimswtmI&feature=related[/ame]

 

Natonic, I think Duran definitely takes his foot of the gas late and plays around with Leonard abit. He would struggle to through ten punches in the last round.

 

I think it was closer when the Marvellous One beat him rather than Roberto's clear beating.

 

My scorecard

Duran: 1,2,3,4,7,8,9,10,11,12,13
Leonard:5,6,14,15
Total: 166-139 Duran (11-4)