LW Tournament Decade's Best: DURAN 1978, CHAVEZ 1987, WHITAKER 1990, MAYWEATHER 2002

Explain to me the stories of Duran's adventures in the gym against slick defensive fighters?

His impatience in dealing with a running Leonard?

Maybe Duran was'nt as adaptable as you might think!

I'm going both by what I've seen and heard of Duran.......
.....and to me, Chavez' better patience was better equipped to deal with movers!


Listen, Duran may very well be the best lightweight ever, there is no way to approve or disprove that, as it is a matter of opinion......but I get the feeling that to many view Duran in the light that they do because of the menace he created verbally and emotionally, in and out of the ring.
Duran wore his emotions on his sleeve, and I think it may be a big part on why people hold him in the light that they do.

Chavez for example was better emotionally controlled in the ring....you never saw him pump his fist, punch at his own chest or growl emotionally.
For some reason, fighters who wear their emotions on their sleeve and are loudmouth's, are deemed to be and labeled more ferocious.

The fact that Chavez anhhilated in a controlled manner without a self propagandic fiasco, is likely what made him better and more patient vs movers.

Its not called huggery my friend, its called an opinion!

 

And yet there was plenty of demand to see Chavez fight the man that Whitaker was robbed by? Money maybe, and Chavez went with the money, but he knew he wasn't facing the biggest threat at 135.

I don't want to get into a 'what Chavez should have done' debate. That's neither here nor there. What it comes down to though is he didn't dominate 135 or face the best fighter there.

Mayweather clearly won the second fight (by three points on my card), but it was anything but a dominant performance. He avoided all exchanges and looked awkward doing so. No one but a deluded fan boy would walk away from that performance thinking Mayweather looked great or dominant.

It would have been good to see Mayweather hang around and face the likes of Johnston and Spadafora, but he quickly jumped ship before clearing the waters at 135. A lot of the media were divided on the Castillo-Johnston fights and Mayweather had had a history with Spadafora which a lot of people would have liked to have seen played out in a championship fight. Mayweather likely beats both, but he certainly didn't prove it with his bouts against Castillo.

 

Vlade, what you've seen of Duran is basically the equivalent of seeing Chavez from the Whitaker fight onwards.

Opinions are opinions, but in effect, your opinion is uninformed. You haven't seen Duran's prime, a whole two weight classes below welterweight.

The idea would be to get the opinions of people who have seen both in their primes and ask them who was the more versatile.

I'm guessing we'd be waiting a LONG time before we had one that believed Chavez was more versatile than Duran.

Again, it'd be all opinion, but INFORMED opinion. Something you don't have on this topic.

 

Disagree word for word on everything you said, so what else is new?

Honestly, Scientist, I read alot of KO and Ring Magazines back then, and I dont ever remember anyone accusing Chavez of avoiding Whitaker during that time period way back then when Chavez was about to fight Meldrick Taylor.........

.....I'm sure there could possibly be a few articles of who think the way you do way after in hindsight......but I never heard anyone complain way back then that Chavez should be fighting Whitaker.

As far as I know and have read, Chavez did'nt really want to face Ramirez who was his brother in law, but went ahead with it to gain another title belt, and give his brother in law a payday.

We've gone through this before......Champions on the level of Chavez dont fight defensive cuties like Whitaker, unless theres something to gain.
Whitaker was a stylistic hurdle to climb for any fighter, and you'd have to be a straight up moron of a promoter to match him up with him, unless Whitaker had something to offer......at the time, a Whitaker match would'nt have been either a legacy defining fight, or a big payday.

It made no sense for Chavez to postpone moving up to 140 lbs to seek a legacy defining fight against at the time, the more highly regarded Meldrick Taylor, for legacy and for money!

Its just that simple Scientist.....Its shameful of you to throw out the vibe that Chavez somehow ducked Whitaker at 135 lbs!

Chavez was the dominant lightweight at the time period he fought there......if you polled the boxing beat writers back then, likely 80+ percent would have thought so!

 

To clear it up, if it isn't already clear: I AM NOT QUESTIONING CHAVEZ'S MOTIVES IN MOVING UP TO 140!!!!!

His motives are irrelevant.

The point is, he did not face the biggest threat at 135 at the time. THAT IS THE POINT.

Did he move up to face a bigger threat at the time? YES.
Did he have reason to fight Ramirez instead of Whitaker? YES.

Did he face the biggest challenge at 135 at the time? **** NO.

It's like with Hamed and Marquez back in the day. Marquez was probably Hamed's biggest threat at featherweight at the time. Hardly ANYONE was making noise for Marquez to get a shot at Naz. Naz had bigger fish to fry in and around his weight division. People were talking fights with Mayweather, Barrera, Norwood etc.

Does that mean that Nas cleaned out 126?

Seriously, if you don't get the point now, forget it!

 

Marquez didn't even have an out and out robbery on his hands with Norwood. It was a fight most thought could have gone either way. In that sense, his claim to fighting Naz was even less than Whitaker's to fight Chavez.

And furthermore, unlike Chavez Naz had taken on nearly every legitimate threat in the division.

I have a sneaking suspicion though that you won't admit he cleaned out 126.

I'll wait and see :yep

 

When did you start following boxing, and did you follow Duran during his lightweight years.

I've seen 5 or 6 of Duran's lightweight fights on video. He looks great, but I dont see how anyone can grasp just how good he was unless he's been following up on seeing with his own two eyes his opponents fights pre and post Duran.

You can never get the same education of what a fighter and his caliber of opposition was about, unless you lived and followed the era.

If you did'nt follow the era as it happened, then you're not significantly more educated in it than I am.

If you were around and followed the era, then its a different story.......
I do believe you're younger than I am.....so I dont think you're qualified to base and rank Duran's greatness based on watching just film.

Imo, its just never the same unless you lived it yourself, which is why I shy away from ranking fighters from the past in the classic forum I was too young to have followed.

If you did'nt live the era, you cant grasp it the same as someone who did!

You said yourself Scientist, Duran faced one true defensive master in his career in Wilfredo Benitez, and Benitez had an easy time contolling Duran!

I think the task for Chavez to beat Whitaker at 147 lbs, parralels Durans task to beat Benitez at 154 lbs.....and that also was a meaningful fight for the juniormiddleweight title.


Both Duran and Chavez at the point of these fights were exactly the same age, 31 years old.
Both were fighting above there best fighting weights.......

.....the same with their opponents....Whitaker was better suited for 147 lbs than Chavez, and likely Benitez style and body type was better suited to fight at 154 lbs than Duran.

Alot of similarities here Scientist.........


Who would you think had the harder task Scientist, a fighter to beat a peak Whitaker at that stage, or a fighter to beat a very formidable but maybe not so peak Benitez?????

Of course I thought Chavez had the harder task and faired better with Whitaker than Duran did with Benitez who I'd regard as a less difficult task.

Your thoughts on this Scientist, you too Robbi.......

I think it says something about Chavez' versatility that he deals better with Whitaker than Duran did with Benitez.......or dont make me gag and tell me Duran performance vs Benitez is more competive than Chavez' vs Whitaker!

Not only does Chavez perform better than Duran, but I'd rate Whitaker an outright better fighter than Benitez.

Thoughts????

 

Naz did not clean out 126 lbs because JMM had been his mandatory for awhile, and Naz petitioned the governing body to bypass his mandatory.
.....back then, I listened to a couple of boxing talk radio shows......
Rich Morrata's, and also Steve Kim's "The Main Events"......and it was routinely talked about how Naz was avoiding the one real threat he had in the division......at the time MAB had been fighting at 122 lbs.....and though his name had been mentioned for Naz, most boxing experts regarded JMM as "the threat at 126 lbs!"

.......Naz blatantly ducked JMM by petitioning to bypass him as his mandatory.

......no such thing with Chavez vs Whitaker........as I said and you fail to acknowleadge, Whitaker was'nt a champion and he did'nt have anything that Chavez wanted........it never came to the point that Whitaker was Chavez' mandatory and he skipped town!
That just was'nt the case here Scientist, but you conveniently fail to acknowleadge it.

 

I didn't start becoming a hardcore boxing fan until the mid 90's. I had a cursory interest in the sport since the late 80's, following the likes of Jeff Fenech and Jeff Harding (as an Aussie) but it didn't go much beyond that.

I was not around during Duran's time so I can't have the knowledge of a person in and around that period that saw him and his opponents fight live.

What I do have though is a heap of film on him and quite a bit of his opponents too and I think I can make a pretty accurate judgment as to all their abilities given the footage that I have.

It's not like I have anything other than footage to go by when looking at any fighter really. I don't attend fights in the States, I'm in Australia, and pretty much everything I know on boxing is mediated by film and reports.

The first thing anyone familiar with Duran as a lightweight will tell you was that he was a totally different fighter after the first Leonard fight. He never again showed the same form, the same sharpness, the same speed, the same ferocity and work rate. He did have some late career resurgences, where he showed glimpses of old form, but he never approximated the Duran of old.

The Benitez fight came about a year and a half after the No Mas scandal, and Duran by that stage was no where near the fighter he had been when he was prime. He had shown in the second fight with Leonard just how far he had fallen from the stage he was at in the first fight. In the Benitez fight, he declined furthermore.

Duran turned up out of shape, and got easily handled. In his very next fight he lost to Kirkland Laing, a talented fighter, but a fighter that Duran near his best form would not so much have broken a sweat over.

Benitez though, at the time of the Duran fight was well into the prime of his career and had adjusted to 154 easily, still being in his early 20's at the time. The weight was clearly more comfortable for Benitez than it was for Duran and Benitez carried over most of the traits that made him an exemplary fighter at lower weight classes. The only thing that really diminished for Benitez was the power and strength ratios relative to the fighters of the 154 weight class - something not really relevant in the Duran fight given that Duran was no natural 154 pounder himself.

Duran's situation was different to Chavez's at the time of the Whitaker fight. Chavez was regarded the pre-eminent fighter on the planet (Duran was tied an equal 10th in the KO p4p charts for the year ending 1981 for instance) and had shown NO signs of slowing down. Even in the Whitaker fight itself, Chavez looked no less quick or sharp than he had in any fight in the preceding few years. He simply came in against a fighter superior to anyone he had faced before and found himself being troubled.

Duran dropped off the p4p charts after losing to Benitez, whereas Chavez remained in the p4p charts until his subsequent loss to Randall. Duran was regarded pretty much a spent force after losing to Laing - a fighter not on Frankie Randall's level that Chavez lost to a few fights after the Whitaker fight.

The equivalent for Chavez would have been to rematch Whitaker after the first fight. Give Chavez credit, he was intelligent enough to know the beating that would have been awaiting him if that happened. If the Chavez that fought Randall turned up to fight Whitaker, we would be talking shut out, just as Benitez was when he faced a faded Duran.

 

Whitaker
Duran
Mayweather
Chavez

I think Chavez is overrated in ATG sense. I really think he will be KOed by Duran, he will miss and beaten to the punch by Whitaker and PBF all night long.

 

I guess you can adjust reality to suit the point you're trying to make......but what you're saying is that it was basically a **** Duran who destroyed Pipino Cuevas and Davey Moore, and gave Hagler all he could handle........also shame on Tommy Hearns for allowing a **** Duran to go 2 rounds with him!

Christ, both Chavez and Duran were the same age 31 years old.......

......and oh yes, I forgot.....it was Duran who during that time frame was fighting what seemed to be every 6 or 7 weeks......

......it was Duran who had more mileage on him.......

Wonder why Duran had a nightmarish time against Benitez, but destroyed Cuevas and Moore, and took Marvin Hagler almost two years after embarassing himself against Benitez, almost to the bring of losing his Middleweight title!

It could have nothing to do with Duran's inability to handle Benitez' defensive Maestry, you're right, Duran was probably shot!:roll:

Suit yourself Scientist......how dare I question Duran and his ability to deal with defensive minded specialist!

 

Whitaker didn't have anything that Chavez wanted because Chavez didn't want to prove himself against the best fighter at 135. He left the division before proving himself unequivocally the best, which is what fighters that clean out divisions do. Chavez did not clean out 135:nono

Where was Whitaker ranked by the WBC after the Ramirez fight anyway?

 

Some facts:

1. Duran did NOT give Hagler all he could handle. Duran got easily outboxed by Hagler and got close on some corrupt/incompetent judges' scorecards.

2. Pipino Cuevas was shot.

3. People got on a hard-on about Davey Moore because he beat Benitez - not realising that he beat a Benitez who suffered a broken ankle. Benitez got up on one foot and Moore still couldn't plant one on him.

4. The hardest thing to deal with when you decline is speedy fighters, hence Duran's greater struggles with Hearns/Benitez/Leonard when past it than with more stationary fighters.

5. Duran handled a lot of good defensive fighters in his prime and if he faced them when fat and past it, he would struggle with them. (shock horror statement that one).

6. Chavez NEVER handled nor competed on even terms with a great defensive fighter to say that that gives him the advantage (diversity wise) on Duran. The world throught he got embarassed by Whitaker :good

7. Duran faced a greater diversity and level of fighters than Chavez did and performed better than Chavez did given who he was facing.

 

Wow is that all...Gotta get on that Divac, you couldnt possibly appreciate how good Duran was there by only watching that many fights. And I would guess they are mostly title fights but he also has some excellent non-title wins aswell.

Watching him grow from the green 20 year old kid against Kobayashi to the matured, finished product in the 3rd DeJesus fight you can really see why he is so reverred.

I read a lot of people say Duran is overrated and not that impressive but when you look below the surface almost always these people have seen as much or less then you have of a prime Duran...I just about never heard a person who has seen an extensive catalogue of the man not consider him a true great in a league where he has few peers.

 

As I was saying Rock, I'd like to hear someone that has seen plenty of Duran and Chavez in their primes say Chavez was the more diverse of the two. Don't see it happening...