The Myth About Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran

Yeah, Leonard never really struck me as a guy who cares much about how hardcore boxing fans rate his victories though.

Interesting point that always gets ignored is that Duran apparently had a much harder time making weight for the first fight. He was running around in multiple layers of clothing in the summertime the week of the fight to make weight in Montreal.

 

With a not-so-small difference being that Leonard and his people publicly stated that they planned to fight Duran's fight before the fight...

 

Speaking as a casual, "I fought a stupid fight, but could have beaten him easily otherwise" plays better with me than "I only won the second time because I tricked him into getting fat."

But to dig further than that, you'd need to figure out what Leonard thought casuals thought. Which would be tricky.

 

That's called "covering your bases". If you get the win, it looks even better. If you lose, the excuse is already out there.

 

There's a huge difference in making weight and being in fighting shape. I've posted before where Bob Arum a few years after the fight saw Roberto that summer and thought he weighed close to 200 pounds. Sort of like when James Toney made weight for the Jones fight but was no where near ready and for the same reason as Roberto , lack of discipline . Roberto grew up poor as poor gets and when faced with doing, eating, drinking or having anything he wanted he indulged. I remember Freddie Brown saying once that the only reason Duran moved to 154 pounds was he didn't want to train and lose the weight not because he couldn't. Looking at the back part of his career he put significant effort out in very few fights, Cuevas, Moore , Hagler, Barkley and maybe Pazienza . And there was his win over Jorge Castro when Duran was ancient , I never could figure out how Duran got that win. I always rate fighters historically when they were at their best, I rate Duran comfortably inside the top 5 of all time. Higher than Leonard by far.

 

In the rematch, Ray made Duran fight his fight. Ray was very motivated and conditioned. It works both ways.

 

I think so. Both guys had the same layoff, and that could be seen as not having a long layoff. Had it been a longer layoff, they might say Duran was rusty. It would have been interesting had they had a rubber match in 1981 early on, but Duran's confidence at that point was affected.

 

If Duran does anything short of quitting, a rubber match for huge money for both sides would have been in the offing straightaway.

But Duran was untouchable after quitting, at least until he found some sort of redemption. And that took a long time. Had he beaten Benitez, it was in the offing (before Ray’s detached retina halted his career for a time). It was openly talked about. And Roberto, who had been talking about only wanting Leonard, mails it in even though it’s his third-highest career payday to that time (apart from the two Leonard fights) and the very real possibility of getting the match he wanted with Ray if he beat Wilfred.

(It’s a fair argument that peak Wilfred — and he’s pretty close to that vs. Duran — may have just been a bad matchup for any version of Roberto, but his effort still looked subpar.)

You can’t walk into a super fight, where people are paying money to see it in a theater or arena on closed circuit, quit mid-fight with no injury or excuse and expect promoters can sell a rematch of that fight. Nobody’s buying what you’re selling.

 

great post and points. Duran had to resell himself after quitting, and he did for the most part with his big fights later on. To think after Ray he fought Benitez and Hearns and Hagler and Ray again.. And then also Barkley and Moore and later on 19 years after the fab 4 he still had some fights against Camacho and Pazienza to cap his career. He just loved boxing.

 

He did admit it was his intent to get Duran in a situation where he would have to sweat off q busload of weight.

 

The rematch wasn't signed on June 21st. Ray Leonard initially retired. Leonard has acknowledged he knew about Duran's weight fluctuations. It's no mystery. It was also Duran's fault for partying to that degree. He was a professional and he is responsible for his performance.

When it comes to Duran quitting the way he did its a legitimate reason why he stopped fighting. He wasn't getting hit much, that's why many have been baffled about why he said No Mas.

A physically healthy Duran could face Leonard 100 times and he would not be stopped once. With that said Ray came into New Orleans smarter, determined, in peak condition. The best version of Duran would of had alot of trouble with Ray in New Orleans.

The bottom line is Duran f..ked up Leonard did what he was supposed to do Ray won the fight. Anyone who tells me they can't see a difference in Duran from Montreal to New Orleans must be getting their cocaine from the same guy Ray got his from.
It bothers Leonard that he never beat the man at his best today more than No Mas haunts Duran.

 

Fair enough. I only believe the Montreal version of Duran would have a chance of beating Leonard who as I said before was younger, naturally bigger, and one of the best welters of all time. Duran was a lesser version in the rematch and Ray was better in the rematch at least partly because he gained experience from the first fight. The expected result happened - Leonard won.

 

I never understood excuses in boxing as far as anyone accepting them. Especially from a man as great as Duran who knew boxing. Making an excuse does not matter much, and I am sure other guys can make excuses also as Ray has one for Duran 1. Hearns has one for Leonard one. Hearns said something about his legs being weak for Hagler. Leonard in Hearns 2 said he was not there mentally.. When do we believe the excuse or not? It always comes with a loss. I think Ray had that greatness to apply movement and make Duran deal with his speed, and he did.. Ray found ways to beat Benitez, Duran, Hearns and Hagler. He was great, but he was a manipulator but that helped him, and he learned from Duran. Yet he was the most versatile fighter of the fab 4 or 5 if we count Benitez probably since he beat them all. Too bad he couldn't keep fighting and fight Pryor and Curry and Hagler and maybe even fight McCallum, but I think those 4 greats he fought took it out of him mentally and that is what he had. Obviously it took a lot to beat all those guys. He needed a few years to get the motivation and mentality to fight Hagler.

 

I think you've had the cart ahead of the horse the whole thread CT.

I don't recall Leonard thrusting forth any such excuses. As a matter of fact i believe his reaction for some time after the fight was that he thought he won.

Angelo Dundee was the one running around saying Leonard fought to Duran's strengths.

I believe the info on Duran's shenanigans came from one of my previous posts. Bob Arum was the one that alerted us to them.It was many years later that Ray started to talk about playing into Duran's hands.

Bob Arum promoted the “Brawl in Montreal,” which took macho barbs to unheard of heights. Duran abused Leonard psychologically at the time, and Leonard couldn’t handle it. Duran wanted a war, and was willing to go to any degree to make sure he got his war.

Leonard played right into his hands.

Some years later, Angelo Dundee, Leonard’s Hall of Fame trainer, would say, “Leonard got out-psyched.”

Duran knew how to do it.

As the story goes, Duran would see Leonard and his then-wife, Juanita, out in public walking on the streets in Montreal leading up to the fight and yell at Juanita, “I kill your husband. I kill your husband.”

But Arum tells another story.

“It went beyond that,” the Hall of Fame promoter recently recalled. “The papers and the magazines, the media covering the fight watered that down a little. Duran had psychologically out-psyched Leonard. They were in two different hotels in Montreal and Duran had a spy who watched Juanita each time she left the hotel.

“Duran would get a call to hurry to a car that was waiting. He would have the car drive up next to Juanita and say things like, ‘I f— you after I beat your husband.’ That drove Leonard crazy. Leonard knew to beat Duran was to out box him. That fight became a slugfest, and you don’t really want to do that with a Roberto Duran.

“That caused Leonard to lose that fight. That just drove Ray crazy. It’s why he fought Duran the way he did during their first fight. Ray had to box to win that fight, and he knew it. And that’s what he did in the rematch and their third fight. But Duran, he just had a way of getting under his opponent’s skin. He’d do things that really pissed off guys.

“Ask Ray, he’ll tell you.”

 

Yet no one says ‘Roberto should have wanted to beat Leonard fighting his best style, he should know that it cheapens his win to goad Leonard into fighting Duran’s fight on his terms rather than to try to solve Ray using his best tactics,’ lol.