By Brent Matteo Alderson
Sometimes athletes transcend their respective sports and their personas evolve into legends of mythical proportions to the point to where fiction often overwhelms reality. The one fighter whose legend will continue to grow based on his amazing ring accomplishments is Roberto Duran. You’ve probably already heard the one about how Duran knocked out a horse and even though there may or may not be truth to that particular story there really is no need to embellish or revise history whenever Roberto
Duran is concerned because the Duran story is the stuff of legends.
Duran grew up in the poor section of Panama in a one bedroom house with seven brothers and sisters and turned professional at the age of 16 and quickly established himself as a fighter on the up and up with his punching power, speed, and relentless style.
In 1972, at the age of twenty one he won the World Lightweight title with a 13th round knock out over the respected Scotts man Ken Buchanan with a controversial stoppage victory that Buchanan vehemently claimed was the result of a low blow. That very same year Duran fought Puerto Rican great Esteban De Jesus in Madison Square Garden in a non-title bout and was knocked down in the first and dropped a ten round decision.
After that Duran wouldn’t lose again for eight more years. During that time with the help of the legendary trainer Ray Arcel he developed into a calculating assassin, a knock out artist with speed and boxing skills, a fighter who could outbox you or out fight you. Through out the seventies his reputation grew and he became recognized as one of the best fighters in the world right along side Muhammad Ali, Bob Foster, and Carlos Monzon.
As lightweight champion Duran set the record for lightweight title defenses at twelve with only one challenger, Edwin Virtuet, lasting the distance and he avenged his lone defeat to Esteban De Jesus twice by knock out with their third match being his last at 135 pounds. As lightweight champ Duran was menacing, he was a monster.
After knocking out Ray Lampkin on national television and sending him to the hospital, Duran commented, “If I was in shape he’d be going to the morgue.” Joe Frazier who was one of the more popular fighters of the seventies commented, “That Duran reminds me of Satan.” And Sugar Ray Leonard noted, “Tommy Hearns was really a nice kid, but that Duran whooo!” That’s who Duran was, he was a murderous puncher with dark remorseless eyes of a stone cold killer, eyes of a shark and he viewed his opponents with disdain, as mortal enemies on the battle field and he went through them in a brutal fashion.
After leaving the lightweight division Roberto fought some non-title bouts in the junior welterweight and welterweight divisions that set up a title fight against American golden boy and WBC welterweight champ Sugar Ray Leonard. Before the bout Duran called Leonard’s wife a whore and yelled crude insults at the 1976 gold medalist all the way up until the night of their fight in June of 1980. Duran had gotten into the Sugar man’s head and instead of out-boxing Duran, Leonard let his emotions get the best of him and abandoned a hit and move approach that would have been more successful against the Panamanian and they went toe to toe in a thrilling encounter that saw Duran win a hard fought decision. It was to be the only loss that Leonard suffered in his prime.
Five months later the two did it again, but this time Ray won the psychological aspect of the fight and instead of trading with Duran, he out boxed him and taunted him. He twirled his right hand in the air then hit him with his left. He stuck his tongue out, he demeaned Duran and just as the physiological warfare had been won by Duran in the first fight, Leonard turned the tables and for an instance Duran became a lamb locked in a cage with a wolf.
He had never been taunted and humiliated in the ring. Even though the bout was competitive, Leonard’s tactics made Duran feel as though he was losing profoundly because he was someplace he had never been before, he was assuming the role of a victim after having been the predator for so long and he couldn’t deal with the situation because it was unfathomable. So he quit and the bout ended when he uttered the now infamous two word phrase, “No mas,” during the 8th round.
After that Duran would continue to fight on and off for another 21 years and even though he delivered a few more spectacular performances he never sustained any type of consistent success and never successfully defended a title again. After the loss to Leonard, Duran’s career went into the doldrums. In 1982 he lost decisions to Wilfredo Benitez and to Kirkland Layne.
As the saying goes “one man’s loss is another man’s gain” and after Tony Ayala was indicted for sexual assault and sodomy in 1983, Duran received an opportunity to fight the undefeated WBA 154 pound champion Davey Moore and he made the most of it. He dominated Moore and stopped him in the 8th round to annex his third world championship. Coincidently the fight took place on his thirty-second birthday and afterwards the crowd sang happy birthday to him.
Later that year Duran, who had been a lightweight for most of his career challenged then undisputed middleweight champ Marvelous Marvin Hagler and the Marvelous one had to rally to win a close decision. In fact two of the judges only had Marvin winning by a one point margin. Sugar Ray Leonard has commented that “It was Halger’s fight with Duran that showed me that I could beat Marvin.”
In my mind this narrow defeat to a Middleweight legend strengthens Duran’s claim as perhaps the greatest lightweight of all time and with out a doubt the greatest Hispanic fighter of all time. Could Julio Cesar Chavez have gone 15 rounds with Marvin Hagler? A lot of the greats such as Harry Greb and Mickey Walker strengthened their legacies with impressive performance against bigger foes. Greb’s win over Gene Tunney and Walker’s draw against Jack Sharkey both add luster to their accomplishments as does Duran’s performance against Hagler.
After unsuccessfully challenging Halger, Duran hit another low point. In a bout that was supposed to be a unification until the WBA stripped Duran for not fighting Mike McCallum, Hands of Stone challenged Tommy Hearns in June of 84 and was almost decapitated by the Hit Man after getting hit with a powerful right hand as his back was against the ropes. Duran fell face first, knocked unconscious by one of the most devastating right hand punchers in history.
After the loss to Hearns, Roberto retired only to come back in 1986. The pundits laughed and scowled at his come back, but with a couple of solid performances and his marketability he secured a bout against WBC Middleweight champion Iran Barkley who was coming off of a big upset of Tommy Hearns and the pair fought a war in a bout that could have gone either way, but Duran summoned some magic from the past to come up with a killer combination in the eleventh that floored the Blade and secured the victory as well as the WBC Middleweight title. The bout was chosen as the fight of the year by Ring Magazine. The win set up a third bout with Leonard, but the fire was gone and he lost a dull twelve round decision.
Later on there were some solid performances, most notably in his first fight with Vinny Pazienza and in his bout with Camacho in 1996, but for all intents and purpose his career as a world class fighter ended with the Barkley fight.
At the end of the day, Roberto Duran should be considered one of the five greatest fighters in the history of the sport. He established his legacy as a champion at Lightweight, was the only man to beat a prime Sugar Ray Leonard who in his own right is one of the greats, and competitively challenged for the Middleweight title against one of the best Middleweights of all time.
Really besides Henry Armstrong, what other fighter spent most of his career south of 140 pounds and competed for the middleweight title? De La Hoya quit against Hopkins in their fight because he knew he couldn’t win and most of Oscar’s title fights occurred above the Lightweight limit. Even the great Pernell Whitaker didn’t even challenge for the Middleweight title.
Also look at Duran’s longevity. He won his first title in 1972 and his last title in 1989! That’s a seventeen year gap folks and we’re not talking about the WBU, the IBC, or the IBA. We’re talking about major titles, we’re talking about a time when there were only three major organizations, the WBA, the IBF and the WBC, and he won titles of the sports oldest and most prestigious organizations, the WBC and the WBA. Also Duran, along with Saoul Mamby are the only two fighters to ever fight in five different decades. As Thomas Hauser has noted, Duran turned pro when Lyndon B. Johnson was President and retired when George W. Bush was in office.
Next time you think about Duran and his place in history don’t think about the unverified tales about him fighting in the streets for food as a child or knocking out horses to impress girls, just look at his career and recognize that sometimes reality can be more amazing than fiction.
Random Notes:
Danny Romero looked fat at 135. I don’t know if he can do it, but he needs to get down to 118 pounds. If he could get a few wins under his belt and make 118 I would love to see him fight Rafael Marquez. Romero has been around a long time and his reputation and body of work over the course of his career merit it.
I’d like to see Vinny Pazienza come out of retirement to fight Peter Manfredo. It would be a huge fight in the New England area and even though you probably think the idea is ludicrous; odds makers wouldn’t make Manfredo more than a five to one favorite.
Even though James Toney is one of my all time favorite fighters, I think Samuel Peter is going to take his head off in their September match up. Peter is raw and conceivably Toney could outbox him, but James has come in at a new career high weight for each of his last four bouts and two of those fights were for major World Championships so I don’t think Toney is going to get in shape for a non-title fight and with the experience that Peter gained in the Klitschko fight and his awesome power I think he is going to be the first man to knock Toney out.
Paul Williams is supposed to fight Sharmba Mitchell in August on HBO and I think it’s a great match up and a good learning experience. It’s always good to put a former champ on your resume. Williams kind of reminds me of a welterweight Diego Corrales minus some TNT.
Raul Marquez says he wants Winky Wright and he might just get the opportunity. Having a HBO announcing gig allows these fighters to get close to the HBO brass and talk about how they are in good shape and how hungry they are. Look what happened to Kevin Kelley, he got dates with Barrera and Morales when he didn’t deserve them.
Even though I think Lennox Lewis is underrated I still think Larry Holmes would have beaten him in their primes.
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