Who was the better fighter, p4p at his peak? Duran or Leonard?

I mean, one guy was Thomas Hearns and the other...Esteban DeJesus?

 

I'm interested in how you know for sure he was walking around at 147? At the start of his welterweight campaign he weighed 151 against Obando so he certainly wasn't walking around at 147 then. He was just under 150 four fights later.

If he was walking around at 147 he would have lost some pounds in camp that's for sure. I'm extremely dubious he was walking around at 147 for that 2 year period especially given his habits were well known and there was actually multiple occasions he ballooned up way above that weight when still competing at lightweight.

 

Not sure how they calculate their 55% controversy rating.

At any rate, unless there are cards not showing, I see a total of 79 cards, 54 Duran, 19 Leonard and 6 Draw.

If you combine the cards for Leonard and the cards for a draw that’s 25 in total.

So that’s roughly 68% for Duran and 32%
against the actual decision.

 

How many scorecards where a single solitary round or point separates the two? 29 by my reckoning.

So 29 have a 1 point or 2 point fight, 19 for Leonard, 6 a draw.

So...a close fight.

Your counting is helpful for accuracy but doesn't actually change the complexion of my point one iota.

 

I specifically said I know this to be the case at 135, 147 is more of a safe assumption for most fights, though not all. Christian Giudice mentioned it in his book, Duran was around that range during one of his last bouts prior to moving up, I think it was the Viruet rematch, but I'm not sure, and he had trouble making the weight. Obando was also the one that weighed 151, Duran weighed at 147. Duran came in at 142 against Adolfo Viruet only 4 months prior, so I doubt he weighed much more than 150 lbs prior to camp.

That said, it was reported that he weighed an outrageous 168 lbs prior to camp for Brooks only 3 months later. But I think this was easily his most outrageous case at the poundage aside from New Orleans, he certainly didn't nearly kill himself making the weight for Brooks, it was mostly excess fat, which is the whole point of this discussion in the first place, Duran wasn't as naturally big as Leonard.

He definitely wasn't around 147 lbs during all of his Welterweight run, but it's safe to assume that he didn't way much more than 150 lbs prior to the Viruet, Palomino, Nsubuga, Wheatley and Leonard bouts. He weighed a mere 142 lbs for Viruet, had reportedly trained seriously and without bs prior to Palomino and Nsubuga, had the Wheatley fight barely a month after the latter, and we all know how seriously he prepared for the first Leonard fight right after.

 

Sorry, i interpreted the "when he abandoned lightweight" the wrong way. 147 is a reasonable guess per the way you meant but we know on multiple occasions he blew out to 165. We can say it was excess weight, for sure, but he'd been making 135 on and off for a very long time and we know beyond a doubt fighters have to come in a bit heavier as they get older. He would have been struggling like mad to make 135 by the end of his term there.

The other thing we need to take into account at 135 is just how often he was fighting there - he barely had enough time to gain weight.

Duran weighed 151, Obando weighed 151 3/4.

Well imagine those times he hit 165 and had to make 135 hahaha. He came in at 147 against Brooks and didn't have to make any target weight that i am aware of. It tells us Duran was good at putting on weight fast but also was used to taking it off too.

Of course Duran wasn't as naturally big as Ray but the point still stands that he was around the age he needed to let his weight out somewhat as they all (pretty much) invariably all do. If he stayed at 135 much longer the constraints of the weight were absolutely going to hit him.

Yeah he was fighting reasonably often and had a goal in mind with fresh challenges in unchartered territory (that was full of sharks) on his doorstep so that would have kept him in check, absolutely.

 

Yeah, I think it was more of a ''Duran had more trouble losing weight'' case rather than a ''he naturally grew bigger at 26'' around that period. I think Floyd would also fall under that category around the time he permanently stayed at Welter. Interested in where you got the Duran weight from in the Obando fight, pretty sure I had read that Duran was 147 there.

Yeah, Duran always had something going on with him even earlier on, even if he was more consistent with his training. The odd car crash here and there, the occasional ballooning up in weight, you name it. He just managed it better back then. Moving up to 147 was a good decision on his behalf, he had ammased a great Lightweight resume, had beaten like half a dozen contenders from 140 both in title bouts and non title bouts, and had one of the deeper Welterweight divisions ever ahead of him, no point in struggling making 135.

 

It changes the reference point you called in to support your opinion - the 55% controversy rating listed by Eye on the Ring.

That rating implied that more than half disagreed with the decision in favour of Duran - did you not interpret it to mean that and promote it thusly? I simply broke it down and duly proved that rating to be misleading.

 

Admittedly I didn't go through the effort of counting all of the submissions manually so I instead took the percentage as gospel.

Thank you for that Pugguy.

Just to reiterate though, the overriding point was that Montreal was an incredible close fight in the minds of most observers. Eye on the Ring still indicates this to be true.

 

I actually have Leonard beating Duran the first time around, by virtue of a championship rounds surge to overtake Roberto on my card. Could go the other way, I admit.

Still think that Duran's extended display of dominance at lightweight and exquisite performances against Palomino and Leonard may give him the slightest of edges over Leonard's more compressed period of absolute greatness.

 

We’re all good my man. I could break it down further to highlight the numbers in favour of Duran but I’m not really worried about it.

The primary highlight was re the apparent errant percentage. I previously saw a strange controversy rating for another fight that didn’t appear to correlate with the visible scorecards.

There might be a method to the madness to their weird and wonderfull controversy calculation but, if so, I’m not yet privy to it.

At a guess, there may be an older thread which examined the Montreal decision, perhaps including a poll - I’ve never searched for same though.

Personally, I think a decision can be close but still clear - which is my interpretation of Montreal and the decision in favour of Duran - but Leonard was highly competitive - particularly given that he fought Duran’s fight and not his own (imo).

Some might say that Duran took the pedal off the metal a bit for the last few rounds, confident of his winning margin.

Conversely one might argue that Duran literally needed a breather after the many frenetic rounds he’d fought prior to.

As a comparison I’m regards to close fights, I would say the Norton-Holmes fight was so much closer.

However, our mates at Eye on the Ring have a 29% controversy rating for that fight.

But again, when you look more closely, you will see that of the 52 scorecards submitted, 46 favour Holmes while only 6 favour Norton - and incredibly (imo) no one scored it as a draw.

Per those scorecards and by my reckoning, that would actually put the fight at only a 12% or so controversy rating.

Alas, those cards don’t align with how close I thought the fight was in so far as upholding a greater division in opinion - and, as I recall, there were quite a few cards favouring Larry by a mere point.

Good discussion.

 

When I rewatched the fight last year I only had Duran winning by 1 point, and Duran also stupidly gave the last round away which could've cost him.

The myth is that Leonard got beat up by Duran but that's not the case, Leonard fought a very competitive fight vs Duran. Especially in the later rounds where he gave as good as he got in the trenches.

 

Pretty sure McGrain scored it for Leonard too. That's the thing with the scoring system, one guy can be sneaking his rounds in while the other is dominating and clear cut in his winning rounds whilst not reaching a 10-8.

 

I strongly lean toward he'd used up a helluva lot of energy and needed to take his foot off the gas. Given the rage he had toward SRL (any opposition really) there's not a chance in hell he'd back off if he didn't feel the need to or get told to. He would have dominated every single round if he could have and he would have utterly craved stopping him. It's not like he needed to worry about Ray getting lucky with a big punch, Duran had shown and knew he could take what Ray had to give.

 

Yeah, there is the possibility that taking the pedal off and doing some show boating was a thin disguise for taking a breather.

That fight was crazily frenetic, round after round - a bit more so from Duran, but Ray was right up there in the same realm.

Just when you thought they both had to have had a rest, say by rounds 7, 8 or 9, there they were, coming out and going hammer and tong yet again.

A truly great fight imo. A brawl yes, but notably skilful and refined at the same time. I absolutely loved Leonard’s fighting off the ropes - his hands were so damned fast, accurate and with good pop too.

I also openly entertained the possibility of Duran lowering the risk in the final rounds but like you, I didn’t see Duran in any specific and acute trouble in the prior rounds to necesae

Having said that, I think Roberto definitely felt some of Ray’s shots - there were several Leonard salvos that saw Robert initiate holding without throwing back.

It seemed Roberto was a bit shook on some occasions - of course when well chinned fighters like Duran do actually get hurt a bit - it’s not always easy to detect.

Except in the case of the Hearns fight - the “he’s hurt” radar was well and truly going off.