Why is Roberto Duran so hated?

The story goes he ko'd the horse. Which makes me question the likelihood of it being true.

Totally agree animal cruelty is despicable.

 

I acknowledge he was a great fighter but he’s the type of person I’d likely despise as a human being.

 

Snap. Who can forget his lousy sportsmanship after his first fight with SRL and his fight with Benitez? The latter totally outclassed him, by the way.

 

You're right, Greg. I haven't heard that story in decades. Who knows?

 

Yeah I remember him flipping off Ray’s wife.

 

Top 5 ATG, hard not to like him as a fighter imo.

As a person, that's up to you.

 

Current scene fanboys and Mayweather fanatics tend to dislike Duran (and Chavez) because they are popular fighters and some people don’t measure their idol up favorably with them. It’s weird. Most boxing fans seem to have a healthy dose of respect for Duran. Some are wildly fanatical of him. I tend to ignore the fanatics and of course the fanboys/anti old school fans.

 

Roberto Duran being hated? Now that's something new.

 

100% agree about Duran's performance against Sugar Ray Leonard in their first bout--his fanatical conditioning and non-stop aggression were almost identical to Frazier's FOTC performance!! Great comparison!!

 

not by me

 

On the contrary...in Latin America he is seen as a hero in many countries.

 

Calling fighters animals, killers etc. in the context of boxing and based on their performances therein is often considered a positive.

Sometimes also, what some fighters do in the ring is a professional and legal extension of their outside ring behaviours - those behaviours deemed to be not so good given a a totally different backdrop.

Some boxing fans like to keep church and state separate, so to speak. Others consider and judge the individual in terms of their known morals and principles (or lack thereof) external to the ring - and that’s fine, different strokes for different folks.

I’ll just say while there are the devils we know there are likely many more we don’t - and if you were equally privy to their bad behaviours as we are to some of Duran’s - you might just end up disliking the majority of participants in boxing.

Finally, being mean and vicious was very much part of the Duran brand - and for a period, it was a brand well advertised by Duran, be his claims true or not or his actions genuine or deliberately OTT to some degree.

Like it or not, there are fans who are compelled by bad boys - I believe Mike Tyson has a large section of followers who rejoice in a number of Mike’s bada** behaviours external to the ring.

All just IMHO, of course.

 

With Duran being the greatest living boxer, some people maybe jealous of that. That's just natural. Unfortunately for his critics that won't change until he passes.

 

That was terrible.

It brought me sheer joy the way Leonard humiliated him. For being out of shape, he was actually holding his own but the showboating really got to him and he cracked

 

This sentence is the key one in the thread.

I don’t sense any hatred of Duran here or in general, but it is exhausting seeing every loss in his career dismissed as if it should have had an asterisk. There’s always an excuse.

He’s one of my favorite fighters ever, one of my favorite to watch to this day, but I don’t deify him or excuse his poor performances. Quitting against Leonard is fairly inexcusable and if Hagler or Hearns had outright quit they’d be vilified.

Dealing with his excuse-makers can be exhausting and I think that’s what the OP probably has seen and misinterpreted as hatred of Duran.