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

Is this you being objective and wanting to debate?

 

You obviously have no interest in debating.

Statistics don’t allow for circumstances.

Otherwise Sven Ottke should rank higher than Roy Jones and James Toney.

Rocky Marciano was a better HW than Ali.

You cannot determine this just on numbers.

Be a man and come and give everyone an actual debate for once in your life.


Go and look at the element of risk what was taken.

Go and look at the stylistic problems which they were faced with.

Go and look at the quality of the opponents.


We all know about the stats.

50-0 blah, blah.

Yet we also know that whilst Floyd was on his little holidays, Duran was taking on prime versions of Marvin and Hearns etc.


Your little stats aren’t going to alter the fact that Floyd Mayweather would never have gotten in the ring to have fought:

Ray
Hearns
Marvin
Barkley

 

Is this a serious question?

Is the problem not obvious?

The debate has been conducted by an ignorant poster who will ONLY debate upon statistics and nothing else.

Are you not familiar with him?


Are the stats even necessary?


We don’t need stats to know that fighting Leonard x 3, a prime Marvin, a prime Benitez, a prime Hearns, and Barkley at 36, was much more difficult than what Floyd and Manny did.

Manny MAY have fought those guys had he have had the opportunity, but we know for sure that Floyd definitely wouldn’t have.

 

It doesn’t strengthen his case.

He just wants to highlight the fact that Manny and Floyd won weights there whereas Duran didn’t.

That’s all well and good, but Duran bypassed some of the weights that they fought at, in order to pursue bigger and better fighters, and guys who Floyd wouldn’t have fought.

Basically, he’s trying to win the debate on statistics.

That is abundantly clear from his opening post.

 

We’re dealing with a guy who in the last 6 months, has said:

“Floyd would probably have beaten Marvin Hagler”

“Anything Leonard could do, Floyd could do better”

 

The divisions mayweather won titles in were Jr. lightweight, lightweight, jr. welter, welter and jr. middle. weren’t those all around in durans day ?

 

BS.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be objective.

The numbers is all you have.


Forget your numbers for a second.

They can wait.

They can only be respected up to a point.

Again, they don’t allow for context.



Go and list me the top 5 fighters who Floyd and Manny fought.

List them, and then we’ll see which specific versions they fought and where they were in their careers at the time.


Roberto Duran fought PRIME versions of Ray Leonard, Wilfred Benitez, Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns.

The guys who Manny and Floyd fought can’t even compare to those guys.

Your numbers/stats won’t help you out here.


Fighting less fights against easier opposition, is OBVIOUSLY much easier than fighting more fights against much tougher opposition.


Drop Floyd into Duran’s era and he’d never have retired with his shiny 50-0.

It was a different world.

 

What do you mean here by the law of averages?

If we had a large sample size of Floyd Mayweather and Roberto Duran clones, yes, I could see that being relevant. Or even if we were talking about using individual rounds as the comparison unit, maybe. But we are talking about unique fights in different decades. And the numbers we're talking about are simple rank orders created near the time of the fight by a shifting staff of magazine people. It's not an ELO statistical system like chess.

EDIT: Nor, I assume, does it take retrospective assessments into account. Sometimes posterity is a better judge of fighter quality, since we have more evidence available than the people at the time did.

Numbers can be manipulated, and they aren't the be-all and end-all; I agree. But in @NoNeck's defense, raw numbers sometimes lead us to see things that we missed for whatever reason, IMO. I don't think this thread is as terrible as many are complaining. It might actually have been well received if it hadn't been a clear thrown gauntlet to debate.

 

Ok. Fair enough. I still have my doubts that numbers that small would give you a strong enough statistical argument to overpower any qualitative, "subjective" arguments just by literal force of numbers.

The numbers you collected are a great jumping off point, IMO, but I think that you'll still need to engage in qualitative/squishy discussions with your critics.

 

^^^^ And this is the argument here . .Some think dragging JMM up 2 weight divisions actually means something ,, its crazy

 

So what??

He was there wasn’t he?


On what planet would Floyd have signed contracts to have fought Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns??

Seriously.

On what planet?

Not on this one.


You want to punish/diminish Duran for losing to those guys?

You want to do that whilst highlighting Floyd’s 50-0 unbeaten record?

You want to do that despite knowing full well that if Floyd had been around in the 80’s, that he’d have taken more vacations than Clark Griswold in order to have swerved those guys.


Duran was a prime LW with only a 66” reach.

Engage your brain for just a second.


A 5’7 LW with a 66” reach, fighting a PRIME Marvin Hagler?

A prime Marvin Hagler is one of the top 3 MW’s of ALL TIME.


A 5’7 LW with a 66” reach, fighting a PRIME Thomas Hearns?

A PRIME Thomas Hearns is one of the top 2 JMW’s of ALL TIME.


Floyd fought much LESSER opposition, where he had a reach ADVANTAGE over ALMOST ALL of his opponents.

Think about that for a second.


Regarding your opinion on Barkley and Canelo, it just shows us all how completely out of touch with things you are.


Canelo was in-experienced at that level and stood off of Floyd all night long, without putting him under any pressure whatsoever.

Yes, he was heavier than Floyd. But he didn’t impose his weight and his strength at all, so it wasn’t an advantage to him.

Both guys were the same size in regards to height, but Floyd had the bigger reach as well as a huge advantage in speed.


Iran Barkley was much more proven at the highest level and was coming into the ring off of a huge knockout win over Thomas Hearns.

Not only was he heavier and stronger than Duran, he was 6’1 with a 74” reach.


Now try and be objective and think about the above.


Iran Barkley was a much tougher proposition for Roberto Duran, than what Canelo was for Floyd.


If you can’t see that, then I’m afraid that you’re absolutely deluded.

And it doesn’t matter where Canelo is now and that he’s a much better P4P fighter than what Barkley was.

You’re only looking from the perspective of Duran and Floyd from the time, as well as the risk and the degree of difficulty etc.


As great as what Floyd was, you cannot seriously believe that he’d have retired with a 50-0 record had he have taken on the kind of challenges that Roberto Duran did.

You cannot believe that.

 

You don't appear to factor intangibles when your working things out.
In failing to understand these facets you've created a fallacy in which you try to assess careers without understanding the contect.
Numbers can give you some idea but rarely the full picture.
For instance when Floyd came back after his retirement was very tactical in his choices and cherry picked although good names many were either people coming up in weight or had already been beaten. On the flip side Duran was challenging prime ATG's in higher weight divisions and never cherry picked. So as you see from one example of many that I can see. the premise is flawed as it doesn't take into account of the nuance and dynamics of either the era or the fighter in question.