Who was facing the better fighter that night...

This is a mischaracterization of the fight. He didn't fight the wrong fight, that is only a revisionist way of looking at it. He generally fought how he normally fought, and how he won the title. He did he usual boxing puncher routine and tried to sucker Duran into a left hook. There's is this misconception that SRL usually fought how he did in Duran 2, and that couldn't be further from the truth. The reality is, he fought more like Duran 1 than Duran 2, it just didn't happen to work out for him. This is also not taking into account him being seriously hurt in round 2. SRL himself said he was in a fog for 4 rounds after that. He then got hurt again in the 3rd. That would clearly impact your clarity of thoughts to change up tactics. He didn't slip on a banana peel, Duran did that to him.

 

You have no clue what you're talking about. Ray says a lot of things to make himself look better. Acting like you fought the wrong fight to act tough, thus, make it seem like that was the only reason Duran won. That is a total lie. That isn't taking into account that Duran hurt SRL badly, and this can impact a fight greatly. You haven't see the fight then, if you did, you'd realize that Duran feinted SRL to death. This was a big factor. Why did the feint works, because Duran hurt him and he had to respect his movements. It wasn't his call, prior to the fight and the insults Dundee (his trainer) said... My guy is the Bigger guy, the taller guy, long reach, stronger, more powerful and faster. We're going to take the center of the ring and KO Duran. He SPECIFICALLY didn't want SRL moving away from Duran, hence why he stayed in ground more. He said, Duran is a heal to toe fighter, he prefers fighters backing up, my guy and I don't want SRL to do that. Those were his trainers words and why they were fighting like that. Not some made up bs to excuse his loss after the fact.

The reality is this and there is no getting around it. SRL fought like Duran 1 and most foes, than he ever fought like he did in Duran 2. You never saw that again, before or after besides kind of doing that against Hagler. So to say he fought the wrong fight is comical. He mostly fought like how he won the Gold medal and how he won the championship. Turns out that it wasn't the best way for him to fight Duran, but he had every reason to believe it would work going in and so did his trainer

 

Watch more fights of Ray's, he fought more like Duran 1 than Duran 2. Him fighting how he normally fights, while standing his ground more, doesn't mean he fought the wrong fight at the time. Turns out he couldn't fought a better way, but he had no way to know that going in. Second, since you want to take SRL word so seriously, he specifically made the fight so early because he knew Duran wouldn't be in the best condition. So taking that literally, we have no way of know if that strategy would've worked and won against the same Duran that showed up in Montreal. What we do know is, when they were both in good condition, and ready, Duran won