Duran vs His Successors

It would be at 160 if I understood the thread corrrectly.

And, yeah, the excuses made for Duran are laughable. Haven't been around fo a while, so I had forgot have bad it is. Not only his loss to Leonard, but also to Benitez, Laing and Hearns are written off as jsut him beating himself despite all three being very one-sided. Instead arise this unbeatble beast who only had to use his fists and thumbs to beat the legendary Moore. Man...

Think I'll have to make a stop in the overrated thread.:yep

 

Duran WAS out of shape for Laing though, to be fair.Anybody that has seen the fight can see that he turned up fat, expecting an easy 10 rounder.He looked like a little barrel in there.

 

Laing dominated him from rd 2 and on if I remember correctly, though. It wasn't a close fight where Duran's lack of conditioning cost him down the stretch.

Many out of shape ATGs have given better accounts of themselves. Holyfield looked a corpse in Bowe III, for example, but still gave it a good go for as long as it lasted. If Duran had been labouring for breath already inside the first three rds I would give these excuses some creedence. But that wasn't the case in any of the fights.

 

he was just thoroughly out of sorts though.Looked like a shot fighter, slow, no timing, bad balance etc

It's not like he was in there making good moves and just getting outdone by a sharper more talented fighter, as was the case with Benitez who was just better at that stage.He just looked like he hadn't done a bit of training since he lost to Benitez.

I'm not trying to make any excuses for him here, or disputing that plenty of other fighters haven't fought better while being in less than stellar shape(Duran himself did as well) just saying what i saw in that fight.

Given what was known about Duran's lifestyle and word coming out of people in contact with him etc at the time, and then seeing the fight, i'd say this is one case where it makes more sense to take things at face value.

Laing was very fast and quite talented incidentally.He wasted his career himself through ill-discipline.I remember Bunce once dubiously justifying having lAing vs Duran as the greatest ever British win by saying that even though Duran had not trained well, Laing in fact hadn't trained at all for the fight:rofl

 

Only watched the fight once and it probably was Duran's worst at the weight. But I think he in general looked a much more average fighter at 154. His reflexes was clearly slower and his sharpness lacking against Benitez as well.

For whatever reasons he just wasn't the same fighter he'd been at WW and LW. Age, lifestyle, weight - whatever it was he just wasn't the same anymore. That's why I don't see him as great threat at the weight. He wasn't an ATG still who just needed to be up for it, he had declined a fair bit. That in itself isn't strange, though. The thing is, I don't think excuses need to be made for Duran at this stage, since he was clearly past his best. But I'm annoyed that he's made into something more formidable than he was at the time by dismissing the losses and bad perfomances he had.

 

Duran doesnt need any excuses. One of the greatest fighters that ever lived in any era.

Hearns and Benitez were better 154lbers than Duran. Period. Thats as far as it goes though.

 

Perfectly put:good

 

TRUTH:good