Duran from the first fight v Leonard from the second!!!

dftaylor said:

I guess quitting could be interpreted as beating yourself...

Disagree with your post generally. Leonard was beating the hell out of Duran by the end of the first fight. If he'd moved more in the first fight rather than engaged, he could have come on strong to take a clear decision.

It would always be competitive.

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Beating the hell out him is a bit strong, he won the last 2-3 rounds but they we're still close.

I think the first fight is a massively clear Duran win when you score rounds but the fight itself was a lot closer than it would look on a scoresheet with every round very competitive.

The second fight was just as competitive, I had it 4-3 going into the eighth and the round Leonard showboated might as well be null as there was little fighting to it, although it did the trick for Leonard.

I don't even care for the third, its meaningless as both we're massively on the slide, Duran barely tried and Leonard just looked ancient wrapped up in a towel between rounds. They of course we're still capable of beating contenders but compared to earlier versions of themselves they had fallen pretty far.

GazOC said:

I think the 3rd fight is meaningless but, to me, the second fight showed how the first fight could have gone if Leonard hadn't have got dragged into Durans fight. At 147 Leonard beats Duran 9 times out of 10 after that first loss IMHO.

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Its a hard one for me to judge, I think if they had a 100 fights I wouldn't be surprised if the outcome was 50/50. Leonard had a better 2nd fight but it was still close, I think if Duran had stuck to his guns it would have been close again down the distance, with probably Leonard taking the win as he looked more in control.

I'm not going to make excuses for Duran's training, he may have went partying but he did for a fair few of his fights, I just think mentally he'd turned off a notch by the second fight. He was nowhere near as ferocious as the first fight, and yes some of that has to do with Leonard but I just don't think he was ever really mentally as charged after Leonard 1.

dftaylor said:

I agree with your scorecard in the two fights actually, which is also one of the reasons I don't believe that Duran was out-of-shape. Maybe not in the shape he was in back in Montreal, but still.

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Nah, he was in good shape, it was a competitive fight still and even if Duran was on the lash during the build up, its not like he didn't do that for a lot of his other fights and looked fine. I think he was a bit weaker mentally though, like he had nothing left to prove and didn't really want it as much, probably has a lot to do with quitting. I think for those couple of seconds when he quit he will have though he would have been perceived as macho telling Leonard to fuck off after his showboating but it backfired dramatically.