Roberto Duran- his actual place at lightweight h2h,and his place on the p4p.

I can only explain my rankings and logic for the same.

I have Duran #3 at LW all time, based solely on fights contested in that division, behind Leonard and Gans.

I have Duran #7 p4p all time, based on all career fights, ahead of B. Leonard (my #8) and Gans (my #13).

His resume at LW is excellent, going 36-1, twice avenging that sole loss, including 13-0 in lineal LW title fights. De Jesus and Buchanan are borderline top 20 all time at the weight and he beat a solid range of other contenders.

Imo, purely at LW, Duran doesn't quite have the brilliance on his resume that Gans and B. Leonard do. Leonard ended his LW career 81-0 from age 20 onwards, including wins over top 10 all time LW Freddie Welsh, Lew Tendler, ATG Jack Britton and Rocky Kansas. He's the most domimant LW in history.

Both Gans and Leonard did significant work above LW, but nothing compared to Duran, who has what some consider to be the greatest win of all time vs SRL. How many fighters have wins one of the eight original weight divisions above their best, against a prime top 20 p4p fighter of all time?

Add a close loss to a prime top 3 MW of all time (which is absurd when you think about it), the Barkley win (former long reigning 5ft 7ins LW champions aren't supposed to be able to beat 6ft 1ins MW titlests when they're well passed prime), the utter domination of an excellent WW in Carlos Palomino, wins over Pipino Cuevas and Davey Moore, and yes, there's no doubt in my mind he achieved much more than either Gans or Leonard did above LW.

 

I think he tends to get overrated at Lightweight. The wins over Buchanan and De Jesus x2 are excellent, and Guts Ishimatsu, Edwin Viruet x2 and Vilomar Fernandez stand out as far as title challengers go. But guys like Thompson, Takayama, Rojas, Bizzaro and Robertson are very padestrian wins that kinda don't matter as anything other than statistics. 12 defences of the title are a good addition. Imo he has no case over either Leonard or Gans, and could potentially be lower than Williams, Ortiz and Canzoneri and McFarland. But he is at worst the 7th greatest LW of all time based on resume at the weight.

His other weight achievements definitely elavate him. He beat Ernesto Marcel about a year before Marcel got robbed against a Shibata that was coming off a win over Saldivar, beat Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime despite being the naturally smaller man, he beat HoF 147 champions in Palomino and Cuevas, beat Barkely at 160 while 37 years old, was the only one to go the distance with a peak Hagler and arguably beat a 10 years younger Camacho while bordering on 50.

Definite top 20 lock. I do however think most people are being too generous ranking him just outside the top 5 with such ease, despite the fierce competition of the top 20.

 

p4p