Was Yvon Durelle Expected To Win World Title/Is He One of the Greatest To Never Win It?

Durelle was a strong guy with a huge punch ,he and the word great should never be in the same sentence.

 

If he fought Moore today he would've got the stoppage in Round 1!

 

Very possibly!

 

He shouldnt have even gotten a title shot much less been considered one of the best to never win one.

 

He was ranked No 3. Moore had already beaten
Pompey No2.,.Johnson No 1 [3 out of 4] , AnthonyNo4.

 

Except for Harold Johnson, the light-heavyweight division was exceedingly weak in 1958, IMO.

 

Well put Tonto62!

 

1958 End of year ratings

Champ Moore
1.Anthony
2.Johnson
3.Durelle
4.Schoppner
5.Ray
6.Holt
7.Halafihi
8.Bowdry
9.Pompey
10.Luedec

Very weak year!

 

Durelle was a very poor fighter. He got his rating by beating Mike Holt in Canada in a fight that the Canadian referee let Durelle get away with murder. Even then Im not sure how beating Holt gets you such a high rating. As KasimirKid said, it was a weak era. Whats always missed in the discussion of how great the Moore-Durelle fight was is that Durelle was a very mediocre fighter who a prime Moore would have never struggled with. The fact that he had such a difficult time with such a mediocre opponent is exactly why he ducked Harold Johnson for all of those years and why he was eventually stripped. Yes Moore held wins over Johnson but the fact of the matter is that Johnson improved as Moore got worse and Moore knew it. He admitted he didnt want to have to chase the counterpunching Johnson around on his old legs. How anyone could come to the conclusion that Durelle was one of the best to never win a title when the best guy he defeated in his 100+ fight career was Clarence Hinnant who had only just moved up to light heavyweight and who went on to win just one of his next twelve fights before retiring is beyond me. The only reason anyone would puff up Durelle is to make Moore's life and death fight against him more impressive than it was. Exciting fight yes, great comeback yes, but it illustrated just how fall Moore had fallen at that point.

 

I'm not disputing Durelle wasn't a great fighter.
What I'm saying is he was ranked number 3 ,and Moore had already beaten the number 1 ,number 2 and number 4 contenders.
There is simply no argument about that.
Johnson was the standout challenger this is established as fact ,Moore had beaten him 3 out of 4 and as he said ,"Harold couldn't draw his breathe at the gate". "Harold makes you do all the work" .
The last Moore vJohnson fight drew in just 8,327 paying customers into MSG
Ten months later More defended against middleweight king Bobo Olson in front of a 27,435 crowd at the Polo Grounds earning himself $90,000 !
The second Durelle fight broke the record for the Montreal stadium 11,555 turned out and paid $140,519 to see it.
Johnson was high risk low reward.

 

A tiny teen age Patterson beat Durelle twice, once by KO. Just thought I'd throw that in...tongue in cheek.

 

I don't know too much about Durelle, but I would say no. Significant wins are scant on his record.

 

How did he rank among fisherman in his era?