Nigel Benn vs. Roberto Duran at MW

I think it would be a carbon copy of the barkley fight. Tho if duran is ww and benn is mw then benn he was much bigger

 

Not sure who I voted for 4 years ago when this poll/thread first began???

I would call Benn the favorite in this match-up but also think he developed more overall @168. I could see Duran pulling an crafty upset in this fight similar to Barkley...I would still pick Benn but not with confidence at 160...at 168 I take Benn comfortably.

 

Duran is blown away. Benn too big, too powerful, too fast, too vicious - he only needs to land once!

 

I went to a few of the early Benn fights. He was fun, and brought a bit of life back into the British game. But the moment I saw Watson beat Lee, it seemed obvious Benn was not in the same league as Watson. And as good as Watson was, the aura around Duran's name, meant Duran would've found a way to beat Watson, let alone Benn!

Duran was too cute, Benn was so one dimensional as a Middleweight. If Benn did manage to catch Duran with anything, Roberto would've taken it, and eventually ala Watson, Benn would've run out of steam.

Duran TKO5

 

To me it could go either way. For all round skill and savvy it's a no contest Duran could outsmart and outhustle Nigel to a decision or even late stoppage.
However there were not many more intense than Benn early on,it's entirely plausible that Benn could come out really smoking and blow the smaller man away,make no mistake about it,he was a beast,i think this is the likelier scenario.

 

If Logan put in him in la la land what would Duran do? Benn relied on huge swinging blows early on, there was no subtlety about it. As Watson showed, anyone with class had little trouble with the one dimensional attack...

 

Duran would never have absorbed the punches that Logan took in the first 30-60 seconds. Watson didn't really take a punch because of the high guard - Duran relied on head slips while coming forward, and nobody could possibly succeed against Nigel Benn that way, especially not a former lightweight. Flurries of power-punches from all sorts of angles at breakneck speed and unbelievable raw power - Roberto only needs to be clipped once by a Benn bomb. Granted there was no timing or accuracy to Benn's punches, and often he threw them off-balance! But that would only make it more difficult for Duran to read and react accordingly - he was used to the savviest shrewdsters!

 

Also, Duran didn't have hands near as heavy as middleweight one-shotter Logan's!

 

Benn improved after that,not dramatically but he did tighten up a bit.Watson covered up and absorbed the blows for 5 or 6 rounds and basically let Benn punch himself out,once again though Benn learned to pace himself as time went on.
Duran would be firing back early on there's always the chance he gets tagged by the bigger man with the harder punch,if Been catches him flush he's quite capable of doing what Hearns did.
of course if Duran came through that as I've said in my post I'd fancy him to win.

 

Duran was a lot more chilled out in the late 80s. He would let Benn swing away, got underneath him, attack the body, and tie up Benn when necessary. If need be, he would have fouled Benn, winding him up some more, and just bided his time until Benn run out of puff.

It took the Watson fight for Benn to start thinking out what he was doing. And the Eubank defeat before he really started to smarten up.

 

Watson was no banger, you do not need power when given such an obvious target. Duran was big enough a puncher at the time to floor Barkley, thus he would of hit hard enough to flatten pre Watson Benn, when the time was right...

 

Benn had the ability to duck, slip and slide, though he didn't use it against Logan or Watson! Watson was quite the banger with his overarm right punch, flattening John Beckles (amateur world top-five), Ricky Stackhouse (who Duran couldn't hurt) and Errol Christie (world-class slippy sliding) in 30 seconds apiece with it.

Duran floored Barkley with timing, accuracy and accumulation.

 

And Benn fell against Watson through exhaustion more than anything - all those shots he put everything into hitting arms, elbows and gloves.... thing was, Benn was always able to follow-up a missed/slipped power-shot of his with another power-shot immediately, such were his natural punching leverages - against Watson, his shots were blocked rather than evaded, Watson stood in close to Benn and statically erect rather than moving in or out and evading, and so Benn couldn't follow-up or combine his power bombs in the same manner he usually could, like he would against Roberto.

 

Watson was no banger! LOL!!!

Watson was a cutie, his power came though a nagging accuracy and timing.

I liked Watson as much as anyone, but come on, Christie was more shot than a Brazilian jumping a underground gate!

You rightly point out Duran floored Barkley "with timing, accuracy and accumulation"; the same way he would floor the crude late 80s Benn.

The Duran who beat Barkley is a horrible match up for Middleweight Benn. Duran was still in shape, and cliché as it is, had forgotten by that stage more about the sport, than Benn had learned.

 

Off topic slightly, but I always thought that was Watson's forte,basically a counter puncher.
When they had him chasing counter punchers in McCallum and Eubank I always thought it was against his natural style and diminished him.