Duran retires June 21, 1980 - where do you rank him p4p?

In this case yes. We might point to his resume being a bit limited though.

If he retired then and Leonard beats Hearns. Is the assumption that Duran beats Leonard, Hearns and Benitez?

 

Which proves exactly why we should rank on the eye test

 

It certainly would have coloured the rest of Leonard's career. He'd never live it down.

Duran would have been considered in the top 20 ATGs whether he retired after Leonard or not. He had all the elements. To me what he did after didn't really tarnish his accomplishments before. He was wrong to have done what he did in the 2nd Leonard fight, he knew that and came back to win some important fights.

 

I do hold his past-prime losses against him, yes, just like I hold Roy Jones and Evander Holyfield's past-prime losses against them. I judge their careers as a whole.

People who don't hold past-prime losses against boxers tend to be the ones who didn't follow them at the time.

I started following boxing in 1975 when I was a kid. Until 1980, Duran was this amazing guy who you'd watch on Saturday and read about in magazines. By the time I was in high school, he was basically ordinary - losing to guys like Kirkland Lang. By the time I was married with kids, he was a bloated joke quitting against guys like Pat Lawlor.

For most of the time I followed boxing while Duran was active, he basically sucked more than he was good. You'd tell people "Duran's fighting" and people would tune in, and he'd be fat and look like garbage. So it's difficult to pretend that never happened. He was average to bad for DECADES.

It adds up.

Of course, his surprising wins after he'd fallen off the cliff were great, especially against Moore. Frankly, I didn't think he won the Barkley fight. But that was thrilling fight regardless.

But when people ask "do you think it added to his legacy" ... his legacy was IN THE TOILET when he won those fights. It wasn't like he was still at the ultimate height of his career ... and then he added to it with those wins.

There were a lot of garbage performances and 15 losses thrown in where you just looked at an out-of-shape guy going through the motions and said "why is this guy still fighting?" From the second half of 1980 to 2000 (30 YEARS), Duran he looked average to terrible, usually.

So, of course, I hold 30 years of bad performances against his legacy. (LOL) It seems funny you'd even ask that. Watch an average to bad fighter for 30 years, and see if it DOES NOT affect how you view him.

If he'd retired after the first Leonard fight, he might be rated the #1 fighter of all-time. He'd had a pretty flawless career to that moment. (I may have an old RING magazine from that period where he was rated #1 all-time. Of course, that changed a few months later after No Mas.)

Duran was regarded so highly at his peak, that some are willing to literally overlook three-fourths of his career (30 years) and rate him near the top. That's how HIGH up there he was.

If he didn't have those 30 years of bad performances, he'd probably be a universal "lock" for the #1 spot.

 

It wouldn't really be about the 'eye test'. It would be about dominance. Some people still rank top 10 P4P.

It's the same situation with Salvador Sanchez. Sanchez great champion for 2 years with a very deep resume when you consider he wasn't around for very long. But was he tested against all styles? Or maybe he's even greater, maybe he's a 3 weight champion over 10 years unbeaten. He would be either staying at FW and facing Pedroza, Lockridge or McGuigan and Azumah Nelson again. Or moving up the weights facing Chavez, Roger Mayweather, Hector Camacho, Pernel Whitaker, Rosario. He was only 23 when he died.

P4P I don't think anyone rates Azumah over Sanchez because he beat him. But Azumah was a champion for 12 years after his Sanchez loss taking on all comers. Would Azumah have won a rematch? I don't think so but you never know. Azumah is probably the most underrated boxer around, dominant champion for 12 years and no one has him P4P top 20

 

I never understand holding past prime losses against someone tbh.

Doesn't make sense in my head, with all the examples you mentioned they were clearly great fighters who fell off their top level but carried on for the money.

I mean, had Duran achieved enough to be ranked the greatest of all time, prior to 1980,then you should see him as the greatest of all time because he still achieved that.

A bunch of losses when past prime changes nothing for me. Even more modern, Hopkins against Joe Dawson and Joe Smith Jr, Pacquiao against Marquez, Mayweather and Horn etc. A guy has achieved what they've achieved and no amount of losses years later can detract from that imo.

Hence why my answer to this thread is I'd have ranked him lower.

 

But you do rank fighters based on the eye test and this example proves how flawed that is.

As for Nelson, was he ever the number 1 FW? Not in my book. He gets classed as a great SFW but he certainly isn't one of the top 20 to ever lace them up.

 

People do it in real time every day.

If a current champ is winning, people will say he's awesome. When he loses once or twice, the same people will say he wasn't as good as they thought. When he loses four or five times, the same people say he was never really good to begin with and they'll say they were wrong about him and move on.

You don't hear a lot of people say, I'm just going to judge him on his wins and pretend the losses didn't happen. That's particularly hard to do if all the losses haven't happened yet and the guy continues to lose for years to come.

But, for boxers they didn't follow in real time, they tend to cut them a MOUNTAIN of slack and just judge them on when they were at their peak.

It's why people say you shouldn't rate fighters until their careers are over and then judge their careers as a whole.

But we can't help it. We judge active fighters in real time every day.

 

There seems to be a lot of they and a lot of we there.

I completely disagree though, when a fighter who's established greatness loses at an advanced age I tend to think they've grown old over night, had one war too many or haven't been able to train as hard as they once could.

As I said, when Hopkins lost to Joe Smith Jr, or to Kovalev or to Dawson I certainly didn't think he was never that good to begin with, I don't really recall anyone saying he wasn't that good to begin with.

Same when Pacquiao lost to Horn, or Marquez or Mayweather, I didn't think he was never that good, he'd already achieved greatness.

Same when Gonzalez lost for the first time.

I could go on and on.

I don't necessarily think you're wrong for judging a fighter based on results past their best, I just don't agree with doing so.

 

No it doesn't. I don't think Duran looks the best ever on the eye test. I'd still rank him below Mayweather. The assessment of him is on the basis of sheer dominance and him getting extra props for what Leonard would go onto achieve. You're trying to pull a gotcha but we're not talking about the eye test at all in this example.

 

It's not a gotcha, people are entitled to rank how they want. I also like to use the eye test sometimes.

But this is an example when the eye test would fail.

No one would be saying "even though Duran beat Leonard, he would definitely lose to Benitez, Hearns and Hagler who Leonard beat"

But as we know, that's the reality.

Hence my point about the eye test failing.

 

Roberto Duran was 29 when he quit against Leonard. We're not talking about a guy who was 50.

And, when he quit, his entire career fell off the cliff. And for years afterward, he'd lose as much as he'd win. He was 7-5 over his next six years.

My point is, in real time, its difficult to just say, "This guy was great, and now he's past his prime, so I'm going to ignore what's happening in front of me."

I watched Duran's fall in real time. You can choose what you want to focus on when someone is retired. But when you experience the fall, it's not easy to pretend the bad nights never happened.

And ignoring fights that actually happened doesn't seem like a fair assessment if you don't do it for everyone.

When people rate guys like Amir Khan or Audley Harrison, do they only look at the wins? The way people talk about them, you'd think they never won a fight.

 

The Leonard loss was clearly prime Duran, he was the defending champion, I don't care what shape he was in.

But as a LMW, a MW he was past his best both in terms of years and weight, I mean yeah you can say he's no great LMW, but it obviously doesn't detract from him as a fighter.

Of course it should be done with everyone, as I said, I don't agree with holding anyone's losses past their best against them.

Khan and Harrison are two very strange examples. Both lost at every stage of their careers, neither were great fighters. Khan was a arguably the best LWW in the world going into the Peterson fight but he certainly never achieved greatness. Harrison barely achieved a world ranking.

But I mean the Alvarez loss Khan actually receives a tonne of praise for, he looked exceptional that night. The Crawford loss is Khan clearly past his best, wouldn't hold them against him. But Prescott, Peterson and Garcia, all in his prime imo.

Harrison turned pro at 30 and any vestige of prime or World class ability was knocked out of him by Michael Sprott. I'd like to believe he was at his absolute peak for the Haye fight since that was a gift from the gods for him, but he was pushing 40 so realistically he was a shell of his former self.

 

yeah I think that fighting the best and losing is better than never fighting the best. A loss today is seen as such a bad thing. Floyd started that way of thinking by constructing undefeated records.

 

It's not the eye test failing, it's styles make fights and fighters adapting and improving after an early career defeat.

It's kind of like Greb is great for beating Tunney (amongst others but that is his signature win). But what if Tunney improved throughout the series? What if the Tunney that beat Greb towards the end of the series, beat Gibbons and Dempsey was in fact much better than the version that lost to Greb. Should Tunney therefore be P4P ahead of Greb? We don't really know the answer to this question.

Greb actually gets loads of kudos for what Tunney, Mickey Walker, Loughran went onto do after he fought them. But what if they all improved after? Again we'll never know.

Or how about Sanders beating Wlad? We realistically know Sanders isn't taking all of Wlad's competition.