Is it Possible we Overrate Duran?

Neither of these guys BOTH dominated a single division for 7 years AND then rose to championship victories in 3 different weight classes above that division….

 

Having Duran out of the top 20 or so is just pure bias and flies in the face of pretty much every reputable professional opinion in the sport.

Only if one has an agenda against Duran does this argument even find a receptive ear.

 

Isn't this how Burt feels about Dempsey?

 

Agreed. I can't see either of those men outranking Duran p4p. He had better wins, a more dominant reign, and remained more competitive past prime than either of them.

 

I love Tito. But Duran was a better welterweight than Tito, let alone a better pound for pound fighter. There is a scene in one of the Rocky movies (Rocky II) I believe, where Duran (playing an unknown fighter) is running circles, at range, around a plodding Rocky. That's how a fight between Duran and Tito would've looked, just add in crushing right hands, uppercuts, and body punches all over Tito. Different classes of fighters. Duran, one of the all time greats and Tito, a great wleterweight of a middle of the pack era of welterweights.

 

I knew this was coming.

I will counter that Duran fought in a much more transparent era and for the better part of his prime in a more transparent division...

There was no color line, no NY propaganda machine to catapult him to public adoration, no obvious and glaring ducks on his resume, none of the heavyweight machinations and manuevers that have polluted the division since its inception.

That folks in the know still seem to rank Duran extremely high, 40 years after his peak, seems to confirm initial estimations of his prowess. One hundred years later, few would include Dempsey in a top 3 or top 5 list of greatest heavyweights, even tho that is a much more shallow division talent-wise.

 

A bit melodramatic there.

Exactly.

.... If Dempsey had won his championship with a blatant low blow and never rematched, you'd never shut up about it. :deal

 

Just to address the last point first. I have several books and magazines that rank the top 100 fighters or greatest champions of all time. The ring did an article on the 20 greatest fighters of the 20th century in 1999- Dempsey was there. They did the 80 best fighters of the past 80 years. He made the top 20. Burt Randolph Sugar has a few books on the subject, and Dempsey makes the cut. Teddy Atlas has Dempsey number 6 on his all time heavyweight list. I have a book called boxing greats of the 20th century; Dempsey is one among a hundred (the author is British to get some different perspective). Boxing scene has Dempsey ranked number 10 (I know this is lower than 3 to 5 as was Atlas but Duran was 40 years ago, Dempsey 80).

The point being Dempsey is still very highly ranked by professionals. I am not advocating one way or the other but the vast opinion of experts does not mean anything other than it is the vast opinion of experts. If we find it convincing in one case surely we should find it convincing in another?

 

For once I'd like to see a detailed explanation from guys like Bert Sugar as to exactly WHY they rate Dempsey so highly, aside from popularity and their assumptions about him being a hypothetical head to head monster...

 

In Armstrong's case it is arguable.
Well, he even defended his welterweight championship while weighing 134, 135, so that's exactly the kind of case where it becomes valid.
:good

 

I'm not a particular fan of Dempsey but it's not a hard case to make. Dempsey blew out several fighters many orders of magnitude bigger than him such as Willard, Fulton, and Morris. Even if we assume that they were relatively unskilled his ability to do so in quick time speaks of a devastating puncher. He tracked down and stopped Battling Levinksy, the light heavyweight champion, an expert in survival in three rounds. He beat several other quality fighters like Brennan and Miske, turned atg into a clutching spoiler, and knocked out future heavyweight champion Jack Sharkey. That's very impressive. I believe that their are several men that are more impressive but to act like he couldn't fight because of who he ducked is a little silly.

 

a lot of men have blown out top rank fighters who were greater in size than themselves though, and I can think of a good number of resumes that were more impressive than Dempsey's, at least by my own opinion. I just can't see a case for him making a heavyweight top 10.