Seriously now.. People overrating Roberto duran

anyone at that level who moves up in weight whether Duran or Hearns or Leonard or Tito or Oscar, whomever has these same problems moving up and they handled them with without excuses. So why would Duran get excuses, and why would it matter to anyone? All fighters at that level had the same problems and struggled,and yet Duran gets the excuses and other fighters do not. This is what I do not understand, and why his excuses matter so much. Hearns loses, well he lost. End of story. Duran loses, well he didn't train. Ridiculous. as though guys like Benitez or Hearns will be beaten just by training. Not that easy.

Duran was still fighting well at 50 and winning for the most part. Who said he was not great, you are not reading what I am saying. What did I say and what have I been saying for 20 years. He is great, but not 1-10 ATG in my mind. My arguments have stayed the same for years and years. No, because if he is fighting in his 50s, that means he has aged slowly and preserved much better than someone like Benitez, who went down suddenly. And you know what the inferences I am making. And you don't understand what I am saying? Sure you do. Sort of like when you see someone who lived to 100 years old. You see them at 80 on video and you see how good they looked at 80 compared to someone else. It is a marker.

 

Well we have fact in that one. Leonard came back and won against Duran. He explained what happened after the second fight and what he had to do.. He did it. He didn't make an excuse and then lose again. He backed it up, and he also backed it up by beating Benitez and Hagler and Hearns and not losing to them all, only to make an excuse for each loss. I never made excuses for Hearns. I thought it was stupid of Hearns to go for broke with Hagler and being off balance and throwing a wild punch where he was not fully set since he needed room to punch. Had he calmed down and threw his punches less wild, he might not have broken his hand, although Hagler southpaw style with a straight right is a tougher punch to land but had Hearns tried to land more to the side, it would have come out better, or waited for Marvin to switch, and I think Marvin right handed could not handle Hearns well. I take Hearns to task also. and I never said he had an excuse. But I do think in the rematch, Hearns would have won. But he didn't. I think Hagler fights less aggressive, since you cannot fight that way again. so Hagler comes out more measured, and he is at the end of Hearns punches more.. And I don't Marvin wanted that. The fact is yes all fighters have excuses, but for Duran somehow his fans think those excuses explain it all. They don't He lost.

 

he handpicked guys at the right time. It was always something very obvious. The Pacman fight proves that, and his style meant he would fight someone with a weight agreement and weaken them psychologically or physically just enough to get that edge and then take it home with his great style and speed. He was not a warrior and to me not a great great fighter. He had great wins and was undefeated and that is his claim to fame. But I don't think he is very memorable no. Pacman is.

 

If it's so obvious, what are the examples?

Doesn't matter how many people repeat the nonsense about DLH and Mosley, the fact was that they were 2-3 weight classes above Floyd when still in their primes. We han hardly blame Crawford or Spence for "avoiding" Golovkin now could we?

Then there's the Pac situation. Floyd fans blame Pac and Pac fans blame Floyd. For me the truth is probably somewhere in between. The fight should have happened earlier, that much is true.

And Floyd should have faced Canelo at 154, not 152,

 

Stop making excuses please

 

No disrespect taken.

I agree that overrating any fighter is possible; often the symptom of fandom and I'd say quite naturally so. But, I would also suggest that there are certain boxers who, based on their performances and abilities witnessed in the ring, are more difficult to arbitrarily overrate (albeit not impossible) - particularly when discussing speculative, head-to-head match-ups. I think Duran is one of these.

I understand that their are negative aspects of Duran's career, which polarize people in their view of him. And - yes - there are justifications made for these less attractive factors. Whether or not one wants to accept such reasoning, is a matter for the individual.

From a purely historical ratings perspective, I suppose it's a question of how far one wants to penalize Duran for his shortcomings, when stacked against his overall career record. However, in a head-to-head match-up, these factors don't come into it, for me. I don't think these marks against him can take away from what I would consider his extraordinary skillset. So, should I encounter someone waxing lyrical about Duran's skills, I tend to agree with them; no matter how enthusiastic they are.

 

Hey, if you're going to respect a fighter's acumen and skill, no need to go much further than Duran. As I initially admitted, he's an all-time great. Can't see any rational argument against that.

 

I never argued he was not an all time great. All I said was he was not 1-10 all time great because of his lack of wins over all time great fighters. He certainly fought his share of them. His fans know that the Leonard aspect of his career has a lot to do with how he is ranked because that is the only great fighter he beat, also Cuevas who was rather washed up when he beat him in 1983.. So they have to make his win over Ray in the first fight very significant, although he did not knock him out and he was beaten soundly the next two times they fought. It was significant, but it does not make him top 10 all time great. Not the way it unfolded. Sort of like saying Frankie Randall deserves to be ranked above Chavez because he beat him.

 

Dude you picked Pernell Whitaker to defeat Marvin Hagler for heavens sake. It's blatantly obvious you dksab.

 

I have spent too much time around boxing to not know anything about boxing. But that maybe true. But I am not a fanboy and I do not take a fighter who is great and make him more because he has a great charisma. It is still about what they accomplished and putting that into a fair assessment. I am not sure when I said that about Pernell and Marvin or what context I said that in. That could have been said in another context... I do not remember that. Are you going back and looking through all of my posts? You are welcome to.

 

I think the point you seem keen to ignore is that Duran consistently demonstrated advanced abilities. Fortunately, most observers and commentators do not ignore how complete a boxer Duran was - hence his, more often than not, Top-10 ATG listing.

That aside, I think Duran did enough at Lightweight and Welterweight to stack up statistically, as well. He did beat good and great fighters; Leonard just happened to be the greatest one he beat, in what could be considered one of the greatest wins in the history of boxing. So that fight doesn't have to be made 'very significant'; it just is very significant.

 

Most top fighters consistently demonstrate advance ability which is a given, but the quality of the wins means everything when you talk about top 10 ATG because it takes a skill level to be at that lofty place, and look at Larry Holmes or other guys who didn't have great competition at their weights, they were consistent. Bernard Hopkins Delahoya fought some of the best competition I have seen early on. Leonard and Ali demonstrated at that high level with competition how to win.. That is what I mean by top 10, although Ray had a shorter career than most also.
What I have always said is to be 1-10 all time great you need everything and especially beating other all time greats convincingly, otherwise how do you get there. Charisma does not mean much if you lose to all the greats you fought, regardless of weight. Had he fought greats at lightweight, it wouldn't matter who he fought at the higher weights, but at lightweight he lacks that sort of competition.

 

Duran has over twice as many knockouts as Ray Leonard had total fights. Could Ray do what Duran did? That is the question. To be consistent fight after fight year after year is the hardest part. To dominate his division for almost a decade then to move up and beat the guy in his prime weight division. Ray wasn't able to achieve this for various reasons and that is what keeps him below Duran and the truly elite P4P boxers in history.

Even on the flip side you have Leonard getting whipped and carried by Terry Norris at 34 years of age. Duran was still winning world titles at a much older age. Duran even beat Camacho right before Hector knockd out Ray Leonard.

 

I think you’ve perhaps missed the point, rather than ignore it - but, never mind. If you cannot make out the distinction between the skill-level of Duran and that of, e.g. Oscar de la Hoya, then it’s clear to me how you have done so.

Duran’s competition at Lightweight and domination there, along with his Welterweight wins are more than good enough. He did beat Leonard “convincingly”.