watching leonard-duran I right now

Anything for my princess. Maybe you should have a girl? Anyway, how is your *** life? My Lisa is great when I get it.

 

in fairness, i'd say most do occupy the middle ground in this thread. nobody has attempted to denigrate leonard as a fighter, seeing duran's victory as so special precisely because of how good an opponent he bested.

 

funny that despite leonard and his team stating such themselves, these clowns somehow know better. also funny how they reckon he went from green to, erm... not green in 5 months with no fights!

 

Yes I agree. It's really a stupid argument, because SRL himself said that it was his plan to do exactly what he did and he's stated it numerous times..

It's not like it's a mystery or even conjecture.

 

You guys sure are selective on when you want to quote Leonard. When Leonard says he wanted to fight toe to toe, or when Leonard says he got overwhelmed by the moment on the night of the fight, or when he says he got caught up in Duran's machismo bullisht, you dismiss that by claiming Duran 'imposed his will' on Leonard.

But you cling to the 'wanted to catch Duran being fat' statement like manna from heaven. Hilarious.

Gotta love these Duran defenders. They want you to kiss Duran's azz for being the 'smaller' man while simultaneously blaming Leonard for not giving the former LW sufficient time to make the 147 pound limit.

It bears repeating: catching Duran getting fat between fights was no magic feat. He always did. It's well documented. He was James Toney before James Toney.

To believe Leonard built his rematch strategy against Duran (who according to his fanboys completely imposed his style and will on a 'helpless' Leonard), around the hope that a fighter who had been fighting on a 3-5 month schedule and had a history of successfully shedding massive weight going back to his LW days would come in out of shape reeks of comical desperation.

But on Planet Duran, 'No Mas' has to be explained somehow, so you do what you gotta do. I guess.

 

Duran was all over Leonard in Montreal. Boxing and moving is easier said that done against a swarmer as skilled, smart, and quick on his feet as Duran.

Leonard did know of Duran's bad eating and lifestyle habits but what was he supposed to do? Wait longer? Is it not a good thing if a fighter who just lost his first fight goes for an immediate rematch 5 months later? People respected the hell out of Jermain Taylor for doing that against Kelly Pavlik. He even said "people said I should take a tune-up...NO, I want to beat the guy who beat me".

Ray Arcel said he was concerned that Duran would lose to a lesser fighter if he got too comfortable (fat and drunk). Why risk that if you are Ray, and have someone else beat you to it?

Although in all those other Duran fights up to that point, no lesser fighter had beaten him, except for Dejesus, who was an excellent boxer anyway.

Sometimes I think due to DLH-Mosley 2's controversial decision, Oscar gets more credit than he would have had he gotten the decision. Oscar remained the big money draw despite losing to Mosley. I'm sure Mosley would have preferred fighting him again than the likes of Antonio Diaz, Shannon Taylor, and Adrian Stone. When they rematched, Mosley hadn't won a fight in over 2 years and looked devoid of confidence in the Vernon Forrest rematch. Now Leonard gives Duran a rematch right away, and there's still criticism because of Duran's unprofessionalism, both in and out of the ring.

I question how "out of shape" Duran really was anyway. He was not Montreal-level Duran but I think it gets exaggerated anyway, with the stories of the weight loss and his post-weigh in meal. Duran was losing, but it was competitive for the most part. Leonard changed his style and fought much more fleet-flooted, as he would again show in the Hagler fight and the horrendous Duran rubber match. There was even one instance where Leonard throw a punch, I think a left hook, and it looked like it was a big shot. The crowd acted like it was. If you watch it again, and in slow-mo, you see Duran, at the last split second, slip the shot. His reflexes were certainly there, as it yet another example of Duran's wonderful ability to slip punches.

 

Believe what you want to believe. I don't have a problem with people thinking that Leonard fought a bad strategy in the first fight, but having have watched it and read a couple bio's and seen a couple of documentaries, my opinion is my opinion. I think it's debatable whether or not SRL chose to fight the style he did or it was imposed on him in the first fight, but what is not debatable is that SRL knew that Duran weighed about 180lbs before deciding he wanted to quickly rematch him. But this is on Duran because he knew a rematch was going to happen and he had the time to get in shape, he just never had the discipline. So the credit Duran with a legit win and a legit loss, same as SRL. I don't count the 3rd fight as anything but a farce.

 

Where are you at Mongoose? :rofl:hi: