why do people put duran ahead of pac on atg list???

I agree about Benitez, he was not diminished at all until after he went to middleweight.

 

None of the fighters were diminished. Hearns was prime time, so was Benitez, and Duran had put on the best performance of his career 5 months prior to being defeated by Leonard. Hagler, even though he had clearly lost a stop, is evened out by Leonard being way above his best wait, and coming out of a 3 year retirement. All of his wins are wonderful.

 

I can't even make sense of how stupid this statement is.... Duran is rightfully way ahead of Pac in the atg stakes.

 

I think his ranking is tainted by it...not saying thats wrong or right, but I believe in 20years time the controversies around it would be less relevant and would have less affect on his ranking. Just my opinion.

I have Pac top 15, Floyd top 30, Duran & SRL are both top 10 for me.

My reasons for having him top 15. He is clearly the greatest of the decade...10 decades of boxing history, he is top 20-30 at least.

He has some amazing accomplishments, 7 weight divisions championships accross 10. 4 ATG fighters, plenty of other top fighters in his resume too.

Those are my reasons, I dont think their unreasonable in the slightest.

 

Palomino has often said he could not handle Durans speed. It would have not made a differance,besides Ive never heardn anyone talk about Palomino being shot in that fight,losing 1 fight in 5 years by a split decision to an ATG does not make Palomino a washed up fighter.By the way Jackie Mccoy is was an excellent trainer and is well respected,especially in So Cal. ,you should know that. Also Pipino was past his best but so was Duran. Duran was 32 to pipinos 26. You are not an authority to pick and choose the HOF Duran beat all both of those guys were his age or younger than him. Thats what they have the IBHOF for!

 

This is exactly the way I feel about Pac :good

 

It all depends on how you view three particular fights as far as I'm concerned. I had Marquez winning their second encounter, I thought there was sufficient evidence to suggest De La Hoya was no more of a challenge than your average top 10 ranked contender, and Morales was way past his best, as evidenced by the Raheem loss. I have him top 30 after all of that, but if you think Hoya was a monster that night, and that Pacquiao deserved the win against Marquez, I suppose some may have him higher.

 

Palomino lost 2 fights in 5 years which is good, I cannot argue that. Westminster boxing club was ok, but not great. The trainers were not exceptional, and they didn't believe much in lateral movement. All guts and glory, which made for some exciting fights buy shorts careers. McCoy before worked with the fighters more, but later wouldn't train them and then would get involved in the big fights as a cornerman. Palomino was good and the best to come out of there. After that you had decent guys like Ernie Magdaleno who beat Kinchen on pressure, and James was older also, then Ernie Chavez and Rudy Zavala, who was a good puncher, but lacked any sort of angles. I know this was off subject people. Sorry.

 

Something tells me you werent alive to watch Duran. Leonard, Hagler and Hearns werent his only fights.

 

He did beat Leonard, what are you talking about? He won the first fight, when both were at their peak. Something was up in the second fight, Duran wasn't right. The third fight was rubbish. He got sparked by the hardest hitting fighter P4P in history, who had a foot in reach and around 6 inches in height from memory, you can't possibly hold the Hearns fight against him. He moved up to MIDDLEWEIGHT to fight the best middleweight in history, and was quite competitive and took it to a decision.

Duran is the greatest lightweight of all time, he beat the second best welterweight of all time at his PEAK [how many fighters have a peak top 10 P4P fighter on their resume?], AND he beat Iran Barkley. So apart from being the best fighter from the deepest division in boxing [lightweight], he was a four-weight champion and beat a peak Sugar Ray Leonard. Furthermore, in terms of ability, he is one of the most complete fighters to ever step into the ring. He easily warrants a top 10 ranking. Who would you rank ahead of him?

In saying that, Pacquiao is closing in on my top 10 rather quickly.

 

Leonard was not peak when Duran first fought him. He was in his second title defense of his first title. And the only reason people say Duran was not right is because he was outclassed. Ray was great. Give Ray credit for outboxing Duran and making him quit.

 

Beating Ray Leonard who was inexperienced in June 1980 gets Duran in the ATG top 10 Ranking? He didn't stop him or dominate him. It was Duran fighting his fight, and it was a close fight. Then Ray wins the rematch.

 

So you're willing to make excuses for Leonard in the first fight (when there was hardly a legit excuse to be made), but not for Duran in the rematch (when the excuses were overwhelming)? Sounds a bit off.

I believe Ray's best performance was in 1979 against Benitez, so I certainly believe he was at the peak of his abilities by the time he fought Duran in 1980, even if he didn't have the experience he'd later have. The circumstances for the second Duran bout have been covered ad nauseam. If you refuse to even consider them that's your problem, but don't act as if they should be written off by everyone when it's very clear that Duran was nowhere near the same fighter in the rematch as he was for the first fight.