Roberto Duran makes a stop at 140th Street to try to pick up a title vs Muangsurin or Cervantes

Let’s say after making his final lightweight defense in January 1978 in his third fight with Esteban DeJesus, Roberto decides to try to enhance his legacy with a stopover at 140 pounds to pick up another belt before quickly moving on to welterweight.

Of course, failure here probably means the Leonard fight doesn’t happen until Roberto picks himself up and proves himself at 147, which could push that back, so there is risk involved.

The title fight needs to basically happen before the end of 1978 to keep him on track timeline-wise, so we’ll go with that.

On the WBA side of 140th Street, we have Antonio Cervantes, something of a legend but he’s lost to Wilfred Benitez by this time and regained the vacant belt when the wunderkind moved up to welter. He’s got Duran-level title fight experience (or close enough) and he’s got some physical advantages in height and reach.

Across the way on the WBC side of the block, we have Thai phenom Saensak Muangsurin, an accomplished Muay Thai guy who won his first world title in his third fight. He, like Cervantes, lost his title on a DQ and regained it in a rematch. Of note, he will lose the title in December to unremarkable Sang Hyun-Kim.

We can factor in, giving whatever weight we choose, that Cervantes will lose by KO to Aaron Pryor soon enough after this period and Muangsurin will be battered senseless by Thomas Hearns at 147.

Looking at Duran’s record in his adventures at or around 140, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. There are plenty of ho-hum wins here and there (some by KO, some by 10-round decision) over nobodies in over-the-weight bouts between lightweight title fights. There’s his first loss, by decision to Esteban de Jesus, who knocked him down. There’s a competitive win over Edwin Viruet that some disputed, a had-to-work-for-it points win over Saoul Mamby, who was like 15-8 at the time and hadn’t quite found his stride, and a laborious win over southpaw Adolfo Viruet in spring of 1978 in Roberto’s last bout in the 140-pound range (7-2, 7-3, 6-4 on the cards).

Of note, I don’t think Roberto had a single stoppage win over any opponent of note at or around 140 — he stopped Monroe Brooks in eight in this period, but Duran came in as a full-blown welter, as he did for his decision over Jimmy Heair, who was somewhat notable at 140 but never at 147.

So I think we have a pretty clear picture of what Duran was (and wasn’t) around this weight — there’s no Palomino/Montreal type performance on which to hang his hat, but he beat some good guys (and took that one loss pretty far back) by outworking them and working them over. He’s not bowling them over nor chopping them down, however. Accounts of his bouts against the Viruets (I’ve seen the Edwin one) and Mamby make it clear he didn’t ever have them in danger.

We also have these two champs (I’m going to leave Hyun-Kim out of the equation) nearing the ends of their ropes but also heavy on championship experience, naturally bigger and each dangerous in his own way.

So let’s say Roberto lands against either of these around the summer or fall of 1978 — how would he fare against each? Keeping this in a ‘when it could have happened’ rather than ‘best version’ fantasy fight exercise.