How highly do you rank Hearns win over Duran?

Very highly. Nobody before or since handled Roberto Duran as easily as that.

 

Agree.

 

Duran idolators will brush it aside as not really counting because their hero wasn't at his best or had a case of the farts or something beforehand. Truth is, no version of Duran beats that Hearns.

 

Well, I don’t think your last point can be said with total conviction: the fact no one was capable of doing something like that to Duran before or after leads me to think there could’ve been wiggle room for a better fight and Duran just made a 1000 little mistakes that contributed. I think a rematch would’ve looked totally different but I’m usually wrong about anything with red rubber gloves.

 

Hearns' peak year and at his peak weight,in my view.

 

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/who-had-the-greatest-victory-over-roberto-duran.674806/

The forum ranks it pretty highly.

 

It's a great win. Hearns best IMO. That being said I do think Duran would have done better had there been a second bout. He wouldn't win but I feel he does better.

 

It's a great win without a doubt given the context and the results that happened. Duran was coming off a resurgence after losses to SRL, Benitez, and Laing and it seemed like he was on his way out. He proved that he was still a tough customer for anyone when he stopped Cuevas, Moore, and also held his own against Hagler when he nearly beat him. Hearns beating Duran the way he did by destroying him was a shocker but also an important career high win for Hearns. Anyone who thinks this shouldn't count as such is fooling themselves. Hearns would always beat Duran at any point of their career, just a bad styles match up. Perhaps Duran could last a bit longer if they were to have fought again but the results would still be the same.

 

I'm not saying any version of Duran ends up eating canvas in exactly the same way he did that very day.


But very similarly.

 

To brush aside Roberto Duran of all fighters, beyond wow.

 

People forget Hearns was beating Leonard quite convincingly going in the 13th. He was ranked pound for pound the best fighter on the planet going into the 80s.

 

It had nothing to do with diet or training or gastrointestinal issues...
















...It was down to officials forcing Duran to shave of his ample chin beard, before the fight, thereby exposing said chin. (EVERYBODY knows this).

 

In all seriousness, it was probably the most shocking outcome, to arise from the collection of fights between Duran, Leonard, Benitez, Hagler and Hearns.

Absolutely devastating KO.

 

This was recently voted the most spectacular knock out in boxing history on this board. I'm a huge Duran fan and I think I had this ko at like 4 on my list. It's an absolute legend atg being stone cold slept by another atg. It also aged well because Duran would remain in the sport for another 10+ years and book a few more significant wins along the way and at higher weights. I see pretty frequent mention and threads about it too

TL;DR: it's rated very highly among posters here, myself included.

That said, I hate watching it