Two questions regarding Duran-Leonard I (yes i know, sorry) 1) Say the Duran of '80 fought the Leonard of '87, do you see that extra experience for SRL making any difference? Given that in their first fight Duran was coming towards the end of his peak and had all the experience in the world, against a young boxer. 2) Say the Duran of '74(2nd De Jesus fight) against the Leonard of '80, given that both of similar ages; any difference in outcome? Sorry if this has been done before, i just wonder if the experience factor has a major role to play in this fight, more than people realise or discuss, rather than Duran automatically being the better fighter. Leonard was dragged into the wrong fight; something which can really only be put down to experience. So what is the Classic Forums view?
I think De Jesus III was Duran's first genuinely defensively mature performance. But he was still a very good defensive fighter for De Jesus II, and had the same ability to close the ring down and force the action. Probably a closer fight. Hmm.
Ray had just knocked out Green in a lethal way, and obtained a tremendous 15 round experience against Benitez. He was the bigger, younger man. Despite what Duran had done to Palomino, I believe SRL would have always tested out the 29 year old Roberto in the trenches in a first time meeting, being much more of a boxer-puncher than a cutie. Ray dropped Benitez with a jab. The guy had a punch, and only big rugged middleweight Marcos Geraldo had recently taken his best shots without flinching. (Hagler couldn't dent Geraldo either at this time.) The experience Ray needed was the experience of first having shared the ring with Duran, the experience of knowing that he could be hurt by Duran without being able to hurt Duran in return. His situation in Montreal was something like Tunney's circumstances in the first fight with Greb. By the time each had figured out how to properly deal with the smaller man, it was already too late to use that knowledge to salvage a victory in the initial matchup. Greb was always going to beat Tunney the first time, and Duran was inevitably going to win in Montreal. Straight-up, the Duran of DeJesus II probably wouldn't have been evolved enough for the SRL of Montreal, but that's a very tenuous guess. He had tremendous energy in that one, and counter punched very well.