Duran : In My Era, Mayweather Would Have Been Ordinary

[Master]

Oh, you're back.....you know they only ban you because you're black right

Is that onetime? Did he get banned? Bet it was Missy?

[Jimanuel Boogustus]

...The fuck?

[imp]

Leave it out now and stick to boxing.

Let el kabong and the newcomer sort their beef out via pms.

Everyone is not going to agree with this floyd and duran situation.

Duran has achieved a great career and can say whatever he needs to say about boxing as hes put in the hard work.

Floyd has still not finished in boxing but hes undefeated and has earnt more than any athlete in the history of sport and fought and beat all styles.

Hopefully they both live long and healthy lives...

The end.

[FinitoElDinamita]

lol

[beenKOed]

Leave it out now and stick to boxing.

Let el kabong and the newcomer sort their beef out via pms.

Everyone is not going to agree with this floyd and duran situation.

Duran has achieved a great career and can say whatever he needs to say about boxing as hes put in the hard work.

Floyd has still not finished in boxing but hes undefeated and has earnt more than any athlete in the history of sport and fought and beat all styles.

Hopefully they both live long and healthy lives...

The end.

I hear you, but just can't agree. Duran should enjoy the career he had and keep his mouth shut. It's easy to say this, that or the other thing when there's no chance of getting in the ring to prove it. I'm not a big fan of Floyd's, but I still don't like to see old, punched out boxers, whose words carry some weight, taking pot shots from the sidelines. Roberto, you were the man, now Floyd is. Live with it!

[El Kabong]

I hear you, but just can't agree. Duran should enjoy the career he had and keep his mouth shut. It's easy to say this, that or the other thing when there's no chance of getting in the ring to prove it. I'm not a big fan of Floyd's, but I still don't like to see old, punched out boxers, whose words carry some weight, taking pot shots from the sidelines. Roberto, you were the man, now Floyd is. Live with it!

But surely this is not the first nor last time that's ever happened. Old fighters were critiqued by the ancient fighters and the older fighters critique the current fighters, and the current fighters critique the younger fighters...same with life in general. Old men will talk shit about this generation and so on and so forth all you can do is not take it to heart.




Also, I apologize to you fine posters for my outburst....sorry that poster keeps feeling the need to come back and post 1 post that says the same thing each time.

[Andre]

Stop being so emotional about this shit imp.....I just want to see them fight each other. I mean for fucks sake, take some midol. Personally I am more than a bit suspicious of Manny and JMM as a lot of people are, the way they've jumped divisions raises some red flags to me. However they've never been caught so it's just suspicion on my part.

You have started up again: he isnt getting emotional! He is just stating the other take on it and that is exactly what threads are about. you are once again the only one getting personal (which is the real proven emotional part in full). Im surprised you cant see it.

[Andre]

That fool is banned again btw, if anyone sees him in here under another name just mention it to any mod and they will ban him again.
The mans a dick.

[FinitoElDinamita]

One of greatest Boxing minds at the moment in Stephen Edwards aka Breadman gives his take...

Let me just say this. When boxing people refer to certain numbers too much they manifest a false logic. Numbers are important in all sports but not so much in boxing.


I personally would need to know exactly what fights where these statistics were being recorded. Prime is a bland word and we can all have different opinions on when one’s prime started and ended. You also have to look at what type of fighters you are doing these statistics with and how long these fights lasted. More importantly I want to know exactly who the opponents were.


Statistical fanatics love to show microcosms on what they want to prove to be right. I don’t buy that. I don’t know who came up with these stats. But there is no freaking way Ali was a +4. Especially if we track his prime run of his title winning performance against Liston up until his exile after the Zora Folley fight. No freaking way. I have seen every one of his fights from his first tile reign and he was beyond dominant. Cleveland Williams, Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson barely touched him. Seriously you look at those fights and tell me if Ali hit them just 4 more times than they hit him.


There are just certain things that you can’t tell me. Then you look at a guy like Ray Leonard. During Leonard’s prime he was fighting a defensive wiz in Benitez, a top 5 all time guy in Duran and the most difficult welterweight to ever live in Hearns. If you mention the stats you have to mention the opponents.


I think Floyd is SUPER SPECIAL. He is one of the best I have ever seen and I have either seen or studied them all. This in no way is a put down on Floyd. But he’s not going +30 against those killers. No way.


As for Duran’s comments I wish he never said them. Old timers should show these new kids respect and vice versa. Everybody always thinks their era was the best, everybody thinks their neighborhood is the toughest. It’s just the way it is. But everything that is understood doesn’t have to be said. Let Floyd live in his era, the guy can’t help when he was born.

Now I can’t tell if it was you or the writer of the piece that said you have far more talent today than there was 30 years ago, but whoever said that is WRONG. The problem is if you weren’t watching boxing 30 years ago or you don’t really know the sport then you may not know the B level studs. Just like some guys 30 years from now won’t know how tough that kid Chaves is that Keith Thurman just beat. Some guys you actually have to really do research on or have been watching boxing at the time to know who they were.
There is NO way guys are better today at top or mid level. First let’s go through the top. Since you brought up Floyd, let’s use him as an example. Floyd has won titles from 130 to 154. Ok Let’s go back to Duran’s time. At 130 the best fighter was Alexis Arguello. I’m not going to get into who wins or loses. But Arguello is recognized as either best or 2nd best fighter ever at 130. His reign there was off the charts. Floyd would have had his hands full with a prime Arguello of 78-80. At 135 we have Roberto the Beater. Duran just beat you too death. Not so sure if Floyd would have won a title at 135 had he been fighting back then. Next you have Aaron Pryor at 140. That’s another tough fight for Floyd. That’s 3 all time greats he would have had to tangle with that are better than anybody he has ever faced.


At 147 you have Leonard and Hearns. They stand 5’10 and 6’1 and they would both be big problems for the great Mayweather. Then at 154 Hearns and Mike McCallum were the guns on the block. Let’s assume that if a 154 pound Miguel Cotto troubled Floyd than these guys would. So the writer who claimed that things were top heavy back then was dead on.


But he missed the killers in Bobby Chacon and Boza Edwards at 130. How about Edwin Viruet and Hector Thompson at 135. Antonio Cervantes at 140. Carlos Palomino and Andy Price at 147. Tony Ayala and Davey Moore at 154. I could really go on all day.


In this day and age of interim this and super that there is more room to succeed. But in those days if Duran or Leonard wanted to unify they had to fight Hearns and Esteban De Jesus. There is a difference bro. In this era Floyd is probably the only guy at these weights that could have competed with the killers from Duran’s day. No disrespect to these guys but you wouldn’t even see all of this moving up. Adrien Broner jumping from 135 to 147 to fight what champion?!


If Broner waits for Heanrs or Leonard to move up then he would have had to deal with Dandy Donald Curry and Marlon Starling. I’m telling you things are different. And trust me nobody would be moving up to 160 today if a guy like Marvin was around.


I will just leave it at this. I train my fighters to be old school. That word is popular for a reason. Boxing was more popular, you had less titles and better champions. There were some really good fighters who couldn’t win a title that would be a champion today. Ask any matchmaker over 50 how would Edwin Viruet have done with Antonio DeMarco or Ricky Burns at 135. Seriously. I don’t want to disrespect any of these fighters today that are trying their best, again they can’t help when they were born.


But there is just a difference. A distinct difference in the eras. I see too many guys that could not have competed at the top level years back. So let me name the guys who could have instead of the guys who I think would have just been ordinary. For the record Floyd MAyweather would not be ordinary in any era. He’s special. He just wouldn’t be a 5 division undefeated titlist. So the list goes Floyd Mayweather, Andre Ward, Manny PAcquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez, Bernard Hopkins, Nonito Donaire and Guillermo Rigondeaux would rock out and give as good as they would take in any era at their prime weights. If I didn’t name them then they couldn’t or I don’t know enough about them yet. Now let me state the guys I named wouldn’t do all of this weight jumping and their records may not be so glossy but they would do their thing. That’s my honest assessment.


- Breadman

[Violent Demise]

Of the guys mentioned I think Floyd would beat Starling, Chacon, Price, Thompson and Boza Edwards. That's about it. Forget the top 4. Does anybody seriously think Mayweather would be able to beat Curry or McCallum?

[jehoshaphat]

I think Bread has a lot of bias, mostly sly, in his arguments that I have read. No sense in going into detail about that. You're entitled to your opinion and I respect that. He used Broner jumping up to take Malignaggi's title as an example of weakening this era. Everybody, including him, knows that was a cherry pick. You can't go by titles nowadays because they're plentiful and they're a joke. Ward is not even a titlist but he is the clear best at 168-175. Go by who is on your resume. Broner hasn't beaten a great of this era yet so don't use him as the example. But about his honest assessment he left out the Klitschkos What era would they have not been a factor Big George Foreman was the scariest man on the planet when he faced Ali. He came in measuring 6'3" and 220 lbs. Could you imagine Vitali and Wladimir showing up at 6'7" weighing in at 250 in those days? Does anyone in sound mind really think they wouldn't have been able to hold their own or 'give as good as they take?' That is not even debatable. Hate on the Klitschkos all you want but even the all timer Lennox underestimated a prime Vitali once(even getting him as a short notice fill in) and found out enough to retire instead of trying that again. And I strongly disagree when people make one era out to be much better than the next because what can they compare it to Each era can only fight themselves. Boxing isn't a measured sport like track or golf where you can easily see who is better by just comparing how they fared in the measurements/scores. Even football and basketball have some measuring comparison where they can time speed and drills of the now bigger athletes who can run just as fast and jump just as high as smaller guys from the old eras. Athletes are getting bigger, faster, stronger, and better. It didn't just skip boxing. From the 80s, the 5'7" Spud Webb's vertical was measured at 48" in the dunk contest and it was unheard of. In 2000 dunk contest the 6'4" Steve Francis and the 6'5" Ricky Davis both nearly equaled the vertical at 47" despite being nearly a foot taller. Paul Williams had the reach of any old timer in the heavyweight division and he was a freaking welterweight. At 165 lbs. Jeff Lacy's power measured at the Olympic Training facility measured on par with that of a super heavyweight. Also the MMA 170 lbs. fighters Johnny Hendricks and (fighting at 185 at the time)Robbie Lawlor punching power measured harder than some heavyweights. Even though heavyweights are hitting harder now on average. How do you gauge which era was actually better if you can never fight out of your era? Its opinionated guessing. If you have 5 level A fighters who are at the top of their era and they beat each other up it appears to be a much tougher era. But if you take those same fighters and move 1 of the guys to be comfortably better than the other 4 the era looks weaker when in fact it was actually tougher. The one guy just makes the era look weaker by standing out. What if Leonard would have chose to box the first Duran fight and won less controversially against Hagler then he would have been a stand out. Leonard would have looked more special while taking away from the seeming specialness of the era. This is what you have in Ward and Mayweather. Were not talking about the heavyweight division here where the Klitschkos are dominating an "alleged" weak class. If you take Mayweather and Ward out of their weight ranges then you will see a loaded 140-147 and 168-175 group. 140-147...Garcia, Matthysse, Thurman, Rios, Alvarado, Bradley, Pacquiao, Marquez, Alexander, Broner, etc. I can even make an "opinionated" bottom 10...Provodnikov, Brook, Khan, Peterson, Maidana, Malignaggi, Guerrero, Soto Karass, Judah, Ortiz, etc. All by taking out Mayweather you have seemingly more loaded 140-147. Old timers or those biased for the old eras won't point out that this era made guys that ooze athletic gifts like Andre Dirrell and Zab Judah 'ordinary.' We have a much bigger boxing pool than that of yesteryear because of the much bigger population and the ease of finding the foreign fighters and flying to and from so they can readily fight. Boxing was along with the fighters loved much more then. This is mainly why we will always have such a discrepancy, why its taboo to equate the new guys to the old timers, and why you can't say an old timer is overrated.

[imp]

Floyd would never quit in the ring.

[Master]

Of the guys mentioned I think Floyd would beat Starling, Chacon, Price, Thompson and Boza Edwards. That's about it. Forget the top 4. Does anybody seriously think Mayweather would be able to beat Curry or McCallum?

McCallum would make Floyd quit at light middle. No shame as he is not a great light middle.

[bradlee180]

Good post, FinitoElDinamita.

I'd rep you, but it says I have to spread some around.

[bradlee180]

McCallum took the best shots of one of Boxing's most devastating punchers , Julian The Hawk Jackson, and still won that 2 rd shootout. Julian Jackson was undefeated, 29-0 at the time, 27 KOs. Intimidating, gave off a sense of menace.

No way a prime 5'8" Floyd would beat a prime 5′ 11½″ Mike McCallum, nor even sign for that fight for that matter.

More ring-savvy than Floyd, more multi-dimensional than Floyd, more durable, iron-chinned, bigger, stronger, KO power, stamina. McCallum was a brilliant counter-puncher, and he wasn't the most avoided man in boxing for nothing. Guys at 154 and 160 avoided McCallum. Dude fought as high as Cruiser at the end, and he was never knocked out. Floyd with his brittle hands wouldn't be able to get McCallum's respect to keep McCallum off him. Guy schooled James Toney, for $#!t's sake! In that era, I think the one guy Hagler didn't fight was Mike McCallum.
Emanuel Steward prevented a bout between McCallum and Hearns because Steward knew Hearns was the cash-cow but wasn't going to be able to win that fight. Unfortunately, as good as McCallum was, he wasn't a big Draw at the gate.