Who had the greatest victory over Roberto Duran?

The not in shape excuse is not and never has been a great one. If everyone had that sort of excuse, you could not really rate great fighters or any fighter. What if we said Ali was not in shape for Frazier in the first fight? Yet most people say he was not yet ready for that magnitude fight after his layoff in the late 1960s.

 

Hearns spanked him. It was a bad match up for Duran and not a fluke result.

 

Matter of opinion, does he do that to the Duran of 1980, or the Duran who fought Barkley? No.

 

Not a fluke at all. Hearns had the leverage so if he landed with his right hand it was going to have maximum result. And with the speed. Many people thought his fight with Minchillo meant it was going to the distance. I thought it would, but he had a plan with Duran and Emanuel and he said he wanted Duran to fight the arms..

 

Duran was so quick and fast reflexively in 1980, I doubt very seriously Duran gets hit with the clean shots Hearns hit him when they fought.
With that speed and quickness, Duran would be able to get inside to work the body.
The way for Hearns to have beaten Duran in 1980 was to box circles around him like like he did Leonard that first fight. But I think Duran was craftier and dug to the body more than Leonard that he may have been able to take Hearns out even earlier than Leonard did.

The Duran that fought Barkley would have gotten pummeled by Hearns. Hearns and Barkley are completely two different fighters.
Hearns speed and quickness and just overall strenghth at 154 lbs makes his ability to land with power a total reality and would easily beat Duran at that point in time.

 

Duran of the legendary night in "Montreal" would have the
same issue as the version of himself that faced Hearns
06/15/1984. How to get close enough to Hearns
to do serious damage,
The results would be similar. Though Duran at welterweight
would survive a little longer. So All the nonsense about
Duran not being in shape is what it is,
nonsense..
It's simply a bad match-up for Duran, and Hearns physical
advantages to high a mountain for him to climb .
Duran would be much more successful against Ray Robinson
than Hearns would, Hearns would always be a disaster
for Duran.
Hearns destruction of Duran was almost pre-ordained
in hindsight.
But we can't fault Hearns for being born with the physical
advantages that matched up perfectly to blast out fighters
like Duran or Cuevas.
Hearns was able to do what no other fighter in history
from welter to middle would be capable of.
That in itself makes it the most impressive.

 

Benitez' win over Duran clearly underrated on here. Wilfredo dogged him. Took Ray a second fight to do that. Hearns' dimensions would always dominate statures resembling Duran and Cuevas.

 

And Benitez landed far more shots on Duran than Ray did even by the 8th while he lay on the ropes and countered all night, Ray had to use a lot more movement.

 

Some people have deconstructed Duran’s resume to the point that he never lost a fight because he was out of shape or had a hangnail or something so he gets an asterisk by those fights.

 

For me Kirkland Laing’s victory was the greatest in that the difference between the pair in terms of resume, ability and achievement was so huge that many people thought Kirk had no right being in the same city as Duran never mind the same ring!

Kirk rose himself up to such a high level that night, that when he actually came back down to earth, he was never the same fighter again…talk about a poisoned chalice!
It’s as if Kirk had used up every ounce of his energy and skill that he had nothing left in the tank.
It’s like blowing all your savings on a Porsche and for the rest of your life you’re struggling to make ends meet. You have this great car, and you love showing it off and bragging about it but in reality you can’t even afford to heat your home. Well Roberto Duran was Kirkland Laing’s Porsche.
And he showed it off for decades haha!
RIP Kirk

 

Pretty simple, he was a natural lightweight, with lightweight body dimentions, who only lost to fighters bigger and younger than him, the only asterix over his loss to DeJesus, is the fact that he went onto avenge that loss in the third fight.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess part of what Pat is going to come back with is that despite the lightweight body dimensions and fighting bigger younger fighters he was still able to put forth one of the great victories in boxing history over SRL, manufacture a dominant win over a good young champ at 154 in Moore and give Hagler an excellent challenge at 160 of all places. He also beat Barkley for the tile as an even older man.

So Duran in spite of your concessions was still able to get the job done against such fighters at various intervals of his career. The losses he is excused for came in between these bouts so it's not like he didn't have it in him. Even single one of these losses see's similar excuses every time.

Personally i'd give him more leeway for the De Jesus loss than some of the others. The troubles he had going into that one are well documented and he thrust that point home in subsequent battles.

I'll grant Duran was at his most dangerous when inspired but you can't excuse every single loss to the same old stories. He had trouble making weight and ballooned between bouts virtually forever.

I love Duran, it took me time to appreciate what he truly was but i'm not going to buy into excuses for such bouts as Benitez and Hearns. He's said himself Benitez was just too strong that night and he doesn't know what happened, basically.

 

He lost to some fighters that weren`t as good as him, but Laing`s reach was far longer, add that to his power and speed it`s a big ask, Leonard was one of the most dangerous fighters of that era, no lightweight should ever have been alloweed in the ring with Hearns who knocked out a light heavy and no former lightweight champ would stand a chance with Hagler surely.

 

Many years ago while driving around Bethnal Green, I happened upon Laing shuffling along in a crombie ( that had seen better days ) parked up and run up to him for a chat, unfortunately it didn't go as planned, the poor man rambled on quite a bit, and a lot of what he said was not all that clear, but a nice and harmless talk nonetheless, what struck me was his size, obvs he had not fought for many a year, and as such put on weight, still, he was huge !! how he made 147 I will never know, speaks well for Jones that he toppled Laing twice.
stay safe Vic, chat soon.

 

Hi Mike…yes unfortunately he was a wreck towards the end of his life, very bloated. He was on certain steroid medications at some stage which I think contributed a bit to his weight gain.

In his younger days he was always so lean, very defined without an ounce of fat. I did sometimes think he could have gone up to LMW or even MW at some stage in his career, but Kirk decided WW was for him and chose to stay in his lane.