Myth: Roberto Duran has a better resume than Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao.

Dorin was his best win ? Is that your Hall of Famer ? Marcel was a year away from being robbed against Shibata, whose win over a still quality Vicente Saldivar blows anything that either Dorin or Gatti ever did out of the water. Duran's win over Marcel > Floyd's win over Gatti.

 

Of course he'd be undefeated, the only elite opponent he ever fought was Spadafora, a Lightweight. No wonder the huge Middleweight sized Gatti beat him. Shibata's win over a P4P ATG like Saldivar is miles better.

 

Marcel was a featherweight who was heavier on fight night in a non-title bout. Duran was also a featherweight at the time as can be seen in WBA rankings. In what world is that dragging up in weight?

 

It's cute how you're trying to play off the fact you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about as a joke.

 

Another spineless response.

 

Mayweather's resume is kind of a unique case. He has a lot of wins in the bracket of 'good-to-great fighters', and a couple in the bracket of 'these are all-time greats'. The problem is, is that his wins over all-time greats are all diminished by circumstance. Diminished to the point where you'd have to move them back into the bracket of 'good-to-great' again. He has an absurd quantity of good quality wins, but with no truly great ones.

What made Mayweather special, was how he beat them. Nobody since Roy Jones made the best in the world look so consistently foolish. Tie in the TBE marketing, the beautiful 50-0 record and most of the West's desire to be consumers, and it's easy to see why people think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

However, it must be said, that the only two questions that should matter when looking at a resume, is who did they beat, and how good were they at that time? When these are the true criteria (not the arbitrary category shite in the OP), Mayweather and Pacquiao's resumes simply do not stack up to Roberto Duran's, and there's very little room for argument.

 

Mayweather still has an ATG resume and I know you'd agree. But even one ATG in his absolute prime on it would make it twice better.

Ironically, the 'Unknown Panamanian' is similar to Floyd in this regard. His resume is not the deepest, but his great victories are absolute schoolings of Good to Great fighters, much like Floyd.

 

Excellent post George. Whilst from memory you have Mayweather c.10 spots lower than I on our respective ATG P4P lists, this is pretty much how I see it.

Mayweather consistently left no doubt about how good he was by beating more world class boxers than just about any fighter in the past 50-years.

He doesn't have a win approaching as great as beating a prime fighter ranked top 2 in one of the original 8 weight divisions and top 20 p4p all time, 2 weight divisions above the one he was best at, though.

 

I'd disagree, re; Marcel. In fact, when I said "Floyd's resume was absurd quantity of good quality wins but no truly great ones", I was gonna add, "quite the opposite of someone like Marcel, who has the truly great wins but lacks the quantity".

I tend to think of Marcel having three (or four, if robberies are taken into consideration) great wins then like two very okay ones.

 

Thank you, I was trying to be as fair as possible. Leave it to Mayweather fans to consider a top 30 all-time great an insult lol

I agree, Mayweather's career is absolutely stunning. I would state confidently that either Mayweather or Pacquiao is the correct choice for the greatest boxer since the Fab 4.

Well, who does?

No, but seriously, it's just unfortunate for Floyd and Manny that they're being compared to the owner of the greatest win in boxing. In fact I think I said earlier in the thread that if you removed Duran's Leonard win, it would be an excellent comparison and discussion.

 

It should be noted, that if Mayweather and Pacquiao really wanted to build a legacy like Durans, they could always have fought each other.

I mean when it would actually have meant something, say around 2009 or 2010.

Whoever had emerged out of that the winner, would have been a colossus standing astride the division.

If they had won one fight apiece, then both their legacies would have been enhanced, and there would have been two suns in the sky.

Unfortunately it didn't happen like that.

 

...you kick that hornet's nest, @NoNeck, it's your god-given right.