A prime Duran is not a MW Duran.... his best weight class was LW. That's like saying a Prime Roy Jones vs a prime SRL at LHW.
Barkley at his best was equal to the at MW totally overrated Toney, who often needed the judges there to win his fights (Tiberi, Johnson, Sosa, etc.). An old, chubby and washed up- Duran was able to beat a prime and in-shape Iran, so I would take a prime Duran to UD James...
Your are correct, Duran in the twilight career at middleweight. But still Duran gives Toney hell in the bout. How anyone thinks Toney would give Duran a boxing lesson baffles me. I've been a big boxing fan since 1970 and Duran is the best fighter I have ever seen.
Toney is probably the most overrated fighter here on ESB with Hopkins. Look at Toney´s MW- resume and than you know what I mean...
A more fair matchup would be Toney moving down to welterweight to fight that Duran. Duran would handle Toney with out much trouble. Even at MW Duran would give Toney fits and if Toney comes in out of shape, Duran would do to him what he did to Barkley.
Funny, you can always tell when a poster gives an "opinion" about someone who he's never seen.Quite obviously , a couple here have no idea what Duran has accomplished and what he's been capable of.Don't forget, Toney was losing badly to the highly forgetable Michael Nunn, before he lowered the boom on the undertrained, overconfidant Nunn.His reign at middleweight wasn't anything to write home about and he hasn't a win over an elite fighter since.Toney hasn't done anything to compare himself to Duran.Just because the fatso beat a few heavyweights which were either mediocre or washed up doesn't mean too much.The only event that Toney compares to Duran is gluttony and the ability to become obese.
Yes, why not have a prime Dwight Qawi at heavyweight vs. prime Thomas Hearns at cruiserweight while you're at it?
ignoring the fact that there is no prime middleweight duran, Duran out-agresses toney to win rounds until Toney catches Duran big for the first time, which either has Duran out on his feet, or knocked down, from there the fight turns around, Toney being the agressor, duran trying to fight off his back foot, Toney catches duran again... he goes down.. he either weathers it and boxes his way to a loss, or he gets knocked down a couple more times and is TKOed, or possibly KTFO