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

In fairness, I thought he looked completely out of it against Benitez. For all the various excuses that get bandied about for his poor performance in New Orleans, I'm surprised that more people don't raise questions about his preparation and conditioning for Benitez.

 

Yeah, he looked kind of off. He had worked hard in training, though. He made weight about a week before the fight, but Leonard suggests when commentating that this was a sign of overtraining. On the other hand, I think it was a bit hard for Leonard to see Benitez handle Duran so easily on the inside when he himself had a nightmare there against him.

 

On one hand, you have a Duran fighting a much better version of Hagler than SRL fought. On the other, SRL actually got the decision, and Duran did not.

 

Duran did in fact overtrain for the Benitez fight, but you can't really have it both ways and say he undertrained against fighter x,y,z and over trained against fighter t. That just comes across as extremely biased.

But in Arcel's biography he said he wasn't involved much in the training of Duran for that fight, but when he seen Duran and found out his training regiment he felt that Duran had overtrained. Either way he wasn't getting off his combinations the way he normally does, but then again Benitez is a very good fighter.

Here's an interesting article, which confirms what I remember, which is that Duran trained for this fight on an island which was essentially a prison for the Benitez fight.

"Duran began his comeback as a 154-pound junior middleweight by winning unspectacular decisions over Nino Gonzalez and Luigi Minchillo. Then he signed to fight Benitez for $500,000.
Duran had been known to train on rich food and fast nightlife. And, next to the C****, Panama considered him its most important asset. Reports from New York, where he spent time last summer, said Duran had ballooned upwards of 180 pounds before the Gonzalez fight in August. In Panama, getting him into fighting shape for the Benitez bout became a national concern.
Secretly, Eleta and General Omar Torrijós Herrera, Panama's ruler, who has since died in a plane crash, set up training quarters for Duran on Coiba, a penal island 15 miles off the coast of Panama. About 350 people, including Panama's most vicious convicts, live there. For Duran, there would be no restaurants or theaters, no television or telephones. There are no cells on Coiba, but the waters surrounding the island are shark infested. "

 

It was odd, you'd think Benitez coming from where he did would start struggling a bit well up at 154 but many believe he'd found his niche and was peaking.

A fair few experts were saying how much tougher SRL would find him at 154 and some were even openly wondering if he could go one more step and dethrone Hagler. He'd really impressed.