is Duran overrated as a lightweight? quality of opposition?

At lightweight, and let's make that 140 to be super ultra generous, his resume is lacking.

People need to check out the resumes of Ike Williams, Barney Ross, Lou Ambers, Tony Canzoneri, etc. at a corresponding weight. Those guys, and others, had lots of wins over fellow ATGs around that weight.
A guy like Billy Petrolle never even won the title but has a resume you'd hold up against Duran's.
Duran might have been an "old school" fighter for the color TV crowd but those golden age fighters had some serious wins on their records at lightweight.

 

He was great.
I think some of those others were arguably as great. Certainly I think the likes of Benny Leonard and Ike Williams matched him in skills.

But I doubt you lived through the Benny Leonard era.

 

I think that's been covered before. I have a feeling an author called Mike Silver wrote something about it.
Cus D'amato, for example, had 10 old time lightweights ranked ahead of Duran, with 7 or 8 of them firm picks to beat him. Other old school guys had some reservations or similar lists too, Chris Dundee for example didn't rate Duran as comparable to the lightweights of greater eras.
These guys might have just been nostalgic old fools but there's a lot of substance in the actual records of these fighters, and footage of some of them shows them to be extremely great fighters.

In my opinion, Duran's well in the conversation but #1 or #2 all time lightweight seems a generous option rather than a proven necessity.

 

Just one example here.

LOU AMBERS

beat (among others), at lightweight or within a couple of pounds of it :

Henry Armstrong
Tony Canzoneri x2
Pedro Montanez
Sammy Fuller
Fritzie Zivic
Baby Arizmendi x2
Cocoa Kid



..... that's an impresive resume, and Ambers' resume is probably thinner by some way than some of the other greats.

I'm not yet convinced Duran has quality of resume at lightweight.

 

I don't know about vast majorities and "vast minorities", but if you're talking about consensus opinion on one hand, it makes little sense to say experts in the 1970s Duran era knew his competition was very good or great, since very little of that opinion remains in the consensus.
It seems to have been forgotten - or was esoteric knowledge to begin with.
I'm not saying they were all bad challengers but overall it is an underwhelming bunch.

Most guys who rate Duran number 1 just seem to be repeating the mantra "Duran is the greatest" when you ask them details about his lightweight opponents.

A couple of posters on this thread offered some insight on the point in question and that's appreciated.
But when so many are answering by repeating the mantra "Duran is the number 1" or talking about his skills, then does nothing to install confidence in the question about quality of opposition.
In fact, it seems as if there's generally a lack of knowledge or any confidence in the quality of his opposition.

As I said before, in most divisions this wouldn't be much of an issue but lightweight has so often been full of ATGs facing other ATGs. That's where Duran takes a bit of a hit, in my opinion.