Who had the more impressive showing against Hagler? Leonard or Duran

Leonard by far. Duran didn't take Hagler close to the limit. Damn impressive showing from Duran tho, but Hagler was a bit limp too.

 

I don't think Leonard "landed the more cleaner punches" than Hagler. But I agree he won. He won, because fights are decided on rounds won; and he won more rounds, though Hagler's rounds were more one-sided.

As for your ultimate question, I think it's a toss-up. On the one hand, you cannot overlook the fact that Leonard won. But, on the other hand, the Hagler Duran fought was younger and proportionally much larger than the Hagler that Leonard fought.

 

Leonard, by a mile. Hagler was pretty unimpressive in both fights though.

 

I would say Leonard in absolute terms, but if you consider the size of the two fighters and where they started in their careers than on a p4p basis I'd pick Duran.

 

The "but if you look at" qualifiers work both ways. If you look at the fact that Duran had established himself as a dominant, physically strong 154-lber coming into his fight with Hagler, while Leonard was basically coming out of a multi-year retirement after sustaining serious injuries, it tips toward Leonard. If you look at where Hagler was in his career, it tips back to Duran. But if you just look at what happened in the ring, the answer is clearly Leonard.

 

This is really skewing things, I think. It's a stretch to say that Duran was "dominant" at 154 - and even more so to imagine him physically imposing. He looked under-sized versus virtually everyone he fought from 147 upward.

 

Tell that to Davey Moore and Cuevas... (but I hear you--dominant is a bit of a stretch overall).

Duran looked undersized in the sense that he was short. Make no mistake about it though--he had grown into the weight class. He hadn't fought at welterweight in 3 years or lightweight in 6.

 

The Cuevas fight is now a real stretch; come on, you know better! Cuevas was himself moving up, didn't look like he belonged at the weight, and I don't recall him ever getting a single quality win or even boasting a quality performance after he moved up.

The Moore win was indeed dominant, but there is the thumbing issue; and regardless, he did not look physically imposing or "strong" - which was my main beef with what you wrote. In general, Duran beat bigger guys he fought because of his superior skills, and not because of any size or strength advantage or even parity.

I hate to fling the "biased" charge, but it seems to me that you are really looking at the whole Duran v. Leonard issue from a very one-sided vantage point. I don't mind if one thinks that Leonard could've won with a different strategy in Montreal (though I do not agree), because that's an intellectual defensible argument. Nor do I mind if you argue that Leonard's performance against Hagler was more impressive than that of Duran, because he did win more impressively, if you look at things non-contextually. But saying that Duran was a physically strong 154 pounder is just incomprehensible.

 

Sure, but did you see any indication in those fights that Duran was not as physically strong as his 154-lb opponents? I think people harp on the fact that he was a former lightweight in ways that get pretty misleading. Certainly makes his accomplishments at higher weights far more impressive in terms of rating his overall career, but let's not act like he was a David in with Goliaths. He was a full-fledged junior middleweight who was too strong to be controlled or pushed around at the weight, and he physically imposed himself on those who were willing to go toe to toe with him.

 

I was surprised by how easily Benitez handled Duran physically at 154. The guy who mauled the quite strong Leonard just 7 lbs south of that.

What I can say about Duran's physical strength above 147 is that his punch resistance stayed amazingly intact, part from maybe the Hearns fight. He just had no business what so ever taking those punches from Barkley, but he did. I don't remember Hagler or Leonard visibly hurting him either. Benitez punches actually looked to have greater effect on him. Sometimes boxing is just hard to predict, I guess.

 

In a lot of fights at the heavier weights Duran was in fact pushed around early, before the accumulated punches sapped his opponents' strength; this is true even at 147, where Palomino and even Leonard at times seemed physically a lot stronger. If you look at some of the clinches even in Montreal, it looked like Leonard was the stronger guy and out-muscling Duran when in a real clinch; Duran maneuvered himself out of partial clinches by continuously punching or using a free hand to push Leonard's back, un-balance him, and switching positions; but he did not look like the stronger man when they were locked. In fact, a lot of times Leonard leaning on Duran looked a photocopy of Lewis sapping Tyson by sheer mass.

The "physical imposition" thing happened in spite of his size and strength disadvantages. Just because you win inside exchanges and ultimately break a guy down inside does not mean you were the "physically stronger" fighter. Anyways, I find this string a bit redundant, as you yourself concede you went overboard with your description of Duran at 154.

 

Yes; Duran looked small even against Benitez - who won is first title at 140. To say that Duran was a "physically strong" 154 pounder is simply not a defensible argument. There's not much more to say about this, period.

 

Leonard

Duran did well do last the distance, but never threatened to win it.

True, Hagler was closer to his peak when he beat Duran.

But, Leonard, coming back from a three year layoff to show dazzling speed and ring generaliship was quite a surprise and was very impressive.

 

As bizarre as it is I think that 154 was Benitez best weight physically. He just had already fought too much to take advantage of his grown man physique.

And Benitez was an oddly good puncher sometimes kinda like Ali or Pep. His stoppage of shields is semi inexplicable especially considering how shields faired with hearns and leonard.