Educate Me On Roberto Duran...

This

"I personally think that Montreal Leonard fought in a way more akin to his usual style than the one that fought Duran in New Orleans. I mean, look at how prime Leonard hunted down Hearns, Benitez, or Kalule, he didn't win those fights by dancing on the back-foot and outboxing his opponents, but by taking the fight to them and outworking them onto stoppages."

Especially against Benitez, Leonard stalked and hunted him down.

 

Yeah,he mostly just outboxes to show off in the early rounds,then he starts stalking SD the fights went on.
I hear that Leonard's plans on Montreal was to take Duràn out on 4-5.

 

He was a fantastic fighter HOF ATG no doubt, but I always felt if you took away his lightweight resume, that his resume after is very checkered. Still quite good but not great. At lightweight he was definitely one of the greatest no doubt.

 

People would have been talking about Davey Moore as a great if Duran hadn't run him over like a cement truck.

 

Poor choice of words there, BCS8.

 

Duran's lofty status is not justified, based on his record. In particular at lightweight. Sure He looked great, in a relatively weak lightweight division. His record of achievement against quality opposition does not come close to that of Alexis Arguello, or Sugar Ray Leonard, or Salvador Sanchez, and others, in terms of quality victories. And his so-called greatest victory of all time is by no means unanimous, it was much closer than the judges decision indicated. It's all about his popularity as a tough fighter. Respect to Duran, but his lofty status is based mostly on fan popularity, all those polls that put him in the top 5 pfp ATG are there to sell magazines.

I get the same feeling listening to people argue that Jimi Hendrix is the undisputed greatest guitarist of all time, that's a load of crap too.

 

The four kings? Are you forgetting Wilfred Benitez, who outclassed Duran at JMW. He was JWW champ at 17.

Leonard beat all of the guys who beat Duran

 

more lame-duck rationalizations and excuses.

 

I’ve never seen anyone thumb a cement truck.

 

That’s fair.

But let’s not keep giving Duran a pass on the rematch — his decision if he was not as ready as he could have been for the rematch and Leonard’s job was to punish him for it … which he did.

Never thought we’d see Duran quit like a dog. He wasn’t injured. He wasn’t getting beaten up … hell, he was in the fight on the scorecards even if it was starting to tilt the other way. He just didn’t like how it was going so up and surrendered.

Let’s give Leonard full credit for humiliating and taming the great, ferocious Duran and making him quit and drop all the excuses.

 

this is like giving full credit to Rocky Marciano for beating Joe Louis btw

 

No it’s not.

Duran was in his physical prime.

No reason to take this thread all the way down that road we’ve traveled so many times — there are several threads with great discussion on this.

Leonard mentally dominated Duran in the rematch and made him quit. He deserves credit for that.

 

Can’t add much to the overall appraisal of Duran
I’ve said before that Leonard would have lost in Montreal no matter what he did, he was outboxed at range as well as on the inside so I don’t really see how anyone can say he didn’t fight his fight.

Duran knew he didn’t have the legs to beat Leonard in the rematch, he needed to be at 100% and he wasn’t, that’s on him and his handlers.

His win over Palomino is underrated, if you want to see why prime Duran was so good, just watch that one.
Palomino was only 30 and only a few months removed from a SD loss over Benitez where he lost the welterweight crown.
Duran scored a shut out on some cards, some gave Palomino one round. NOBODY else would shut out a prime Palomino like that.

As for his lightweight reign being poor, he fought and beat the best that was available, Buchanan as said is a top 10 lightweight, he was tough as hell but Duran was all over him like a rash.
Mentioning Arguello, he didn’t beat anybody at lightweight as good as Buchanan. He also lost to Fernandez and Marcel, guys who had the style to make anyone look bad, Duran beat them both by stoppage.

 

Bloated with food and diuretics btw