Had Duran beaten Hagler and Hearns in 1983-84, would he now be viewed as the GOAT?

a case could be made to call him GOAT if he managed victories agaisnt hearns and hagler. people will use the argument that what happened in the SRL rematch wouldent qualify him for that title regardless of if he beat hagler and hearns.

 

Should Duran be ranked higher if that happened? I'll say this as diplomatically as possible.

Abso****inglutely.

Phenomenal lightweight career. Wins over (by many accounts) a top 5 all-time welterweight, light middleweight, and middleweight, and titles from lightweight to middleweight despite being past prime for the higher weights.

Of course, because so much film exists of Duran, it wouldn't fly because the more film that exists, the more a fighter gets picked apart. So, alot of people would still stick to the old timers because they didn't see enough to really be evaluated without bias because it's damn near impossible not to be awed by the legends of them- the myth becomes bigger than the man, essentially. Because of that, most would probably keep their top fighters the same no matter what someone recently (within the last 35 years or so) accomplished.

 

without a doubt he would be above SRR and #1 ATG

 

I don't know about being a GOAT, but if he had managed to beat both Hagler AND Hearns, he would definitely be somewhere in the top 5, no matter what the "old boys" of this forum would tell you.

It would be interesting to post this thread in the Classice Forum also, to see what kind of responses you would get there. A thread about the "idolizing the past" thing alone would be very interesting too.

 

He would be the GOAT athlete period.

 

I have him at two....sure, Hearns demolished him but at JMW it was pretty hard to inmagine any former LW hanging in there with him!

Lasted the full 15 with Hagler. Now usually I do not rate fighters higher due to competitive losses, but Duran had so many great wins as well, his resume speaks for himself....the Hagler fight just does more to cment his toughman reputation.

The greatest LW of all time who did well in other weights, is only beaten (in my eyes) by the greatest WW who did well in other weights.

The non-WW footage of Robinson is redundant in my opinion; a slightly faster, slightly more powerful version of the MW Robinson we saw? Hard to see any other WW in history beating THAT.

 

He probably would but there would always be debaters & critics unless you could remove the 2nd SRL fight from history IMO.

A lot of SRR fans might say`Ray would never quit, how can Duran rank higher when he is a quiter` or words to that affect.
You know how boxing fans are.


Botswana :smoke

 

At the same time, Hearns and especially Hagler would likely be looked at less favourably had they lost to Duran (a former Lightweight).

That said, yes, if he beat them he can likely make the case for top spot.

 

Ok come on now. There's no call for that. "On the stool" is a common phrase of fighters in the corner. Don't get your panties in a bunch about that now.

Whether you like it or agree or not, it is naive to think that him quitting does not have any impact.

The man was good and was tough. I take nothing away from him. But when truly describing the GOAT, that's as close to perfection that you can get. That's a high bar for any person to fulfill.

 

How would he have beaten Hearns and Hagler if he couldn't beat Benitez a year and a half before Hearns? Hearns beat Benitez the same year Benitez beat Duran. Although I know this is a what if. But if a guy cannot beat one great, he probably will not beat another one who is even greater. Hearns was greater than Benitez. Yeah had he beaten Hearns and Hagler it would have been impressive, but he didn't and he couldn't. He couldn't have lost the Hearns fight any more conclusively.

 

Ofcourse he would, arguably the greatest ever lightweight going up beating ATg Leonard for the welterweight title, winning a light middleweight title before going to 160 to beat one of the greatest ever middleweights in Marvin Hagler would put him top of the pile.

I think alot of people on this board who are saying, yeah hed be in the top 3 next to SRR and Armstrong dont actually know much about Robinson or Armstrong, or maybe not even seen them box, justa hunch.