is Duran overrated as a lightweight? quality of opposition?

Actually PernellSweetPea, your posts have provoked the logic that it might actually be Sweet Pea thats overrated at lightweight considering his actual resume there.

 

How do you see Whitaker going against peak Benitez at 154, prime SRL at 147, absolutely peak Hearns at 154 and prime to peak Hagler at 160 bud?

 

You could say the same about Pea. Still waiting for you to answer the question... please name Whitakers lw wins that are superior to Ken and Dejesus for starters

 

When a champion reigns as long as Duran did your gonna have some medicore challengers.{no different than Holmes or Joe Louis} Duran took the Championship off a very good champion in dominating fashion. Two defenses against Dejesus were also very impressive. Both Ken Buchanon and Estaban Dejesus were very good not quite great Lightweights. Guys like Lampkin, Suzuki and Edwin Viruet were solid B fighters. His defense against Viruet was impressive because he dominated a boxer that had the style to beat Duran according to his detractors. Then you had your average fighters who were tough like Ortiz and Bizzaro. {Bizzaro ran for his life}. Before he won the title he beat Kobayashi which sometimes gets forgotten.

Duran was an active champion with 12 defenses 11 by knockout. At that time he set the record for consecutive knockouts in championship fights with 10. By comparison Duran`s level of comp looks just fine next to Pernell Whitaker`s. SweetPea was a great Lightweight as well but he had his Poli Diaz`s and guys like Paez who did nothing at Lightweight.

 

I'd love to see 10 or more resumes at 135 better than Duran's. Fighting a lot of names is one thing, but losses count too.

 

Hm, tough to say. I don't think there is a clear cut number one at lightweight. There is a bunch of fighters who do have a shot. Duran is is one of them.

One can only beat the competition that is available. Duran did that. He dominated that division for 7/8 years before moving up. In the grand scheme of things I do not believe in weak/strong eras. I think overall the difference between eras is rather marginal - for example, I don't think the difference between the 30s and 70s hw eras was as big as commonly thought.
Having said that, Duran had an incredible run in those 7/8 years, he lost just once and avenged that loss twice. Lou Ambers might have better single wins than Duran but how about his losses? I don't think you can ignore those. Same is true for most others mentioned on here.

 

His opposition at light weight wasn't that special,he makes my number 4 spot.

 

Trust me, I understand what you're saying here, but I think part of the issue is how we judge who the "best" is. I personally use a mixed bag to come to that conclusion. It's part resume and part h2h. I don't think you can have one without the other. However, the ultimate tiebreaker for me always comes down to h2h. Let's say for example I have two guys I'm trying to rate, their cumulative score comes out the same, the tiebreaker would be, who I think would win between the two.

I don't think Joe Louis competition was all that special, so I very much disagree with your viewing of his resume, and that it isn't similar to Duran. If you're just going by beating ranked foes, then sure, Louis looks good, but then so to would Duran. However, if you dig deeper and go into, not just that they were ranked but do revisionist on how good they really were, things get murky. Louis resume against the best he fought, was VASTLY more spotty than Duran. The best fighters Louis faced, he either lost to, had to come back to win, or should've lost but got a verdict. Duran didn't struggle nearly as much with the best he faced. Point being, it's not just about beating ranked foes for me, but exactly how good those foes were in reality.

Yes, just from a WW resume perspective only SRL being the no. 2 WW of all time could cause some suspicion. However, as I said above, I factor a lot of my ratings on h2h, and SRL in my mind is the no. 2 WW of all time because of that. Anyways, I understand why were are disagreeing, and it basically comes down to how we ranked guys. I give more credit to h2h view than you do, and that's fine for both of us.

 

Great post!

 

He was a bit overrated if you look at his fights with Leonard and Benitez,, yes higher weights but boxing fundamentals of a great fighter should have had him do better. Spinks beat Holmes. Hearns beat Hill..

 

if Duran is top 10 all time then rating all time greats is not valid.

 

Was offered one, in Panama. Didn't like the money, which was a lowball offer.

 

Spinks beat Holmes when Larry was well past it. I personally believe Hill is one of the most overrated lightheavies ever and wouldnt have made a dent in the late 70s early 80s. In fact, several of those guys would have massacred Hill. As far as Whitaker is concerned, he lost to INFERIOR to Leonard and Benitez (especially at 147 and 154) ODLH. Its really looking like Sweet Pea is the overrated one here.