Is Roberto Duran overrated?

For a while I wondered whether the brutal Panama City climate favored Duran early in his career. But he fared pretty well outside of Panama too, where the indoor conditions shouldn't have been a factor.

Duran was notorious for having a huge appetite for life and, especially, food. It's amazing he stayed at the lightweight limit and did well there for as long as he did.

To me, there are two Roberto Durans: the lightweight; and everything else.

The lightweight Duran is in the all time top 10.

The other Duran is in the all time top 20 on the Senior's Tour. :hey

 

i have always thought that duran was a great fighter but was a little bit overrated.....i wouldnt put him in my top 10 p4p list.

 

Top 5 P4P is a tall claim, and I don't believe it's the consensus on Duran. However, Duran reached heights even few ATG's can claim to have reached -- the match he fought aganst Barkley and the Brawl in Montreal were of a level rarely seen. The thing that sticks with people about Duran is, I believe, that he was always at a physical disadvantage from the point he moved up to Welterweight on. Reach, natural weight, often even power. In comparison fighters like Hearns and Roy Jones always seemed to be at a physical advantage -- which does count for the way you're perceived.

Duran is my favorite fighter, and I'm perfectly willing to accept he isn't top 5 P4P. It's an ancient and widely practiced sports, simply said -- there's been a lot of boxers. The fact that he managed to be more than just competitive with bigger fighters such as Leonard, Hagler, Moore and Barkley after +70 fights only adds to his resume. The few losses should not detract -- after all, a lot of good boxers would have more losses if they only fought as many greats as Duran did. No cherry-pickin' here.

He was a gift. You're not going to reach a conlusion in this online message board forum wether he was #6 or #8 or perhaps #13 and it would be arrogant to pretend otherwise. We're not all-knowing, and everything is subjective, so I personally won't give a ranking, but I'll just say I enjoyed him as a fighter.

 

i agree

 

No, I don't believe he's overrated. First, "age of 35" is a standard you apparently picked out arbitrarily- Duran was past his prime and fighting far above his natural weight for at least four of those losses. When you're an old-school champion with over 75 professional fights, a hard-slugging swarmer style, and have moved up 25 pounds in weight, "age of 35" is hardly a reasonable benchmark. Duran had exactly one twice-avenged loss at his natural weight in over 65 fights, had a highly-impressive 12 successful title defenses in one of the most dominant championship reigns in history before moving up in weight, defeated several top fighters at welterweight and pulled off a win over one of the greatest welterweights in history, and even as high as middleweight was able to take arguably the greatest in the history of boxing 15 rounds in a close battle. A guy like that can be reasonably rated about as high as one would like.

 

I think he's top 10 without any drama at all and 5 would be quite defendable. I must do my top 10 soon. I know he is definitely (for me) behind SRR, Greb, Hank and Pep somewhere. He will contend strongly for spot 5 tho i am betting.

 

Post of the day. :dead

 

Yes. His resume doesn't justify All-Time Top 10 placement.

 

I don't think many would argue against the fact that he doesn't have a top ten resume. It's a bit harder to argue that he doesn't have top ten talent. That might not mean that he takes his place in the top ten, but if he doesn't, he definitely knocks on the door.

 

I'd guess from my Top10 Armstrong, Pep, and Charles have less talent than Duran, but better resume. Gans, B. Leonard, Robinson, Jones Jr, Langford, Gavilan, Ross, have at least as much or more talent than Duran, and I could probably name another dozen of fighters who had at least as much talent as him.

 

Don't shrink from your own challenge ... name them.

I think it's interesting ... the distinction between résumé and actual talent. Does reaching the highest pinnacles of p4p success include a marriage of talent and perserverance, or is hard work and a sharp boxing mind more an indicator?

Senya, you may have inadvertently raised a whole avenue of interesting debate on the issue :good

 

I know you've done the list umpteen times but where did you end up rating Duran P4P?

 

Jones Jr is my #1 talent/potential-wise. And he has very good achievements no matter how anyone tries to distort it (the thing is if we gonna apply the same picky aproach to other great fighters, we will find plenty of flaws about pretty much anyone). So summing two criterias up, he's my #4.

 

If it were proved that he'd been a user of steroids as some suspect and has been suggested, how would that affect your ranking and perception of Roy?