Fighters who were outmatched in every department, but still won.

I disagree. Plenty of professional fighters — good and great ones included — lost the mental battle or lost their cool over something.

When things are anywhere near equal physically, boxing is 90% mental. Every great trainer (and many great fighters) have said this or something close to it.

I find it amusing that some people will say ‘Leonard didn’t want to beat Duran at his best, that’s why he rushed the rematch’ (which is even funnier since it was like the longest layoff Duran had between fights in years and his team, like Tyson’s, liked to get him back in the ring asap) … but I don’t recall Duran before the first fight ever saying ‘Ray, I want you to use your skill and box me and fight to your strengths.’

(I do, however, recall Duran’s team making a big stink about the refereeing and openly lobbying for a ref who would let Duran fight more roughly inside — almost as if they wanted an edge, lol.)

There’s no doubt that Duran goaded him in an effort to get Ray to ‘fight’ him rather than ‘box’ him. Yes, Duran still had to impose himself physically (and did so marvelously) but he absolutely wanted to get Ray to fight on his terms.

I think we saw in two subsequent rematches why Duran didn’t want to fight a Leonard who fought to his best strategic advantage. Ray won the mental battle the second time around — in shape or not, he made Duran quit. That was an outcome most would have thought impossible given Duran’s machismo.

 

I think Ray elected to fight Duran’s fight at least initially.

The commentary noted that Ray voluntarily started out flat footed, no lateral movement, and that it was uncharacteristic for Leonard. I agree.

That allowed Duran to get into his preferred groove and style of fighting right from the start.

As the fight progressed Ray might’ve endeavoured to switch horses, strategy wise, but Roberto had already availed himself of the window to do a lot of early round damage -

That damage included Roberto’s brutal body work that would’ve taken away Ray’s legs somewhat and impaired his later attempts to move and escape being cornered.

 

Dick Tiger v Jose Torres
Dick Tiger v Nino Benvenuti

 

You said SRL was more schooled than Duran, he simply wasn't at that point.

I mentioned mental warfare as well, Duran goaded him into a bit of a brawl so until Leonard had actually been taken to school by Duran he was still not complete mentally, unlike Duran. So Duran was always going to get this sort of fight out of him first time.

I'd favor post Duran Leonard over Montreal Duran but obviously any prior version of Leonard was going to lose. It's that simple. Leonard's apprenticeship was pretty much complete after Duran finalized his education.

There was zero chance Leonard was not going to need to infight at various times no matter how he fought in that first encounter.....and he was perfectly happy to do it.

 

Sounds like Ray was out matched, at that point, psychologically.

 

Completely correct.

 

He absolutely was.

Look, you do know the story of the psychological warfare, so we don't have anything to argue about. For some reason, you are not getting the implications of that. Fine. Let's leave it at that.

 

Regardless you voted Duran was "outmatched in every department" and that was wrong, infighting, and whether you (incorrectly) think he, in some world, would not have had to infight at all is irrelevant. Ray was outmatched in infighting which we saw.

 

But overall skills he was superior, and he didn't have to infight.

 

Overall skills and assets probably but the thread said "every department". The infighting has already been addressed by multiple people. If you think he didn't have to infight at all you are wrong. It's not even debatable.

 

All right, I will give you that. I still think it is a pretty good example.

 

Of course a fighter who does ultimately win could not have been literally outmatched in all depts that are relevant to winning in boxing.

Depts including the intangibles we often speak of - intangibles that can be fatally missing for even the most talented and physically superior fighters - physical = “depts” such as height, reach and greater size overall.

It seems Marciano often defied the odds that might’ve otherwise been calculated for him “on paper”.

So I guess Rocky might fit into this category to some extent but we do know the superior strengths (including the all important intangibles) that did allow him to ultimately prevail each and every time out.

 

Pretty much any short fighter at heavyweight

 

Luis Santana over Norris, with the possible exception of chin.

MJ was pretty thoroughly better than Tapales.

 

Superb post, John! I am not surprised.