Duran vs Whitaker, prime vs prime at LW

[Beanflicker]

Beanflicker your bias for new fighters makes sense in the heavyweight division but not for the lighter weight fighters. They were tough, skilled and seasoned campaigners who could easily have wiped the floor with many fighters today.

I'm not saying they weren't tough, seasoned or skilled. I'm just saying that skills have evolved since then, and they are, in general, athletically inferior to athletes of 50 years later.

They are great because they were pioneers... I guess to use another analogy, take Jimi Hendrix. Widely lauded as the greatest guitarist of all time.... but since he died 40 years ago or so, guitarists have largely eclipsed the level of technical proficiency he had. Jimi was an awesome guitarist back in the day, no doubt the best at the time, but if you put him in a time machine and brought him to the present, his guitar skills wouldn't be anything special because there are literally 15 year old kids messing around in their rooms that have the guitar skill he has. Now without Jimi, they probably wouldn't even be playing guitar. And of course he deserves to be known as one of the greats because he was a true pioneer. But if you're talking head to head, no, because things improve with time.

[Beanflicker]

Also, I always found it weird that guys could say, with the same confidence that they would recite their birth date, that a guy like Leonard who they never actually saw fight, have no idea who 99% of his opponents were or if they were worth a shit, would whip a guy like Pernell who's brilliance we have all seen with our eyes. I saw one of Leonard's fights on youtube, and I gotta say I wasn't wowed by the guy. It probably was past his prime, but I didn't see anything that would give Pernell problems.

Think about it, if we could predict the outcome of a fight based on numbers and accomplishments, we'd all be multi-millionaires. You don't get to take a nice looking record or accolades with you into the ring. It's man vs man, ability vs ability.