BARRY: DURAN’S MY FAVOURITE FIGHTER
Hero’s legend was set in Stone when he toppled Sugar Ray in Montreal
HERE’S a clue to my favourite fighter of all time – I called my dog Duran.
Roberto Duran is the greatest lightweight in history. That he could beat Iran Barkley as a worn-out 38-year-old to win a world title at middleweight in his 73rd fight tells you how remarkable he was.
My dad was a musician. In the 70s he would go to New York for six weeks at a time to play at an Irish pub in the Bronx called Durty Nelly’s. Every day after breakfast he would head to Gleeson’s in Manhattan to watch the fighters train. That’s where he first saw Duran. Everybody raved about him and that got me hooked. He won the lightweight world title against Ken Buchanan at Madison Square Garden in 1972, the year I took up boxing.
But it was the duel with Sugar Ray Leonard in Montreal eight years later that cemented his legend.
I was in a training camp for the Olympics in Drogheda and was the only one to pick Duran, nicknamed
Hands Of Stone, to win. He jumped straight from lightweight (135) to welter (147) after beating Esteban de Jesus in 1978. I remember him beating Carlos Palomino a year before he fought Leonard.
Palomino had looked so devastating against John H Stracey and Dave Boy Green.
I thought Duran was taking a risk but he battered Palomino and then went after the great Sugar Ray. Leonard fought the wrong fight. He wanted to beat Duran at his own game. Leonard was spectacular but not on the inside.
Duran was one of the greatest infighters of all time. He hit with his elbow, with his head, uppercuts, and that mop of raven hair flying everywhere was just amazing.
The fight had everything – pace, non-stop action, the lot. Leonard was hurt in the second and showed all his guts and determination. But Duran was just relentless.
He also liked to party, returning to Panama and living on the beach for a month sinking crates of beer, so Leonard knew what he was doing triggering the rematch for New Orleans in five months.
Duran ballooned to 13 stone and was in no kind of shape, having nearly killed himself to make the 10st 7lb limit.
Leonard fought as he should have done the first time, boxing at length, using his movement and speed. Duran couldn’t track him or get close. People say Duran quit but the reality is he was embarrassed. It was humiliation that forced him to utter the words ‘no mas’ and turn his back in the eighth.
Anybody who wants to critique Duran’s career should look at what he did to WBA light middleweight king Davey Moore three years later. That was Duran at his ferocious best.
He would lose to Marvin Hagler at middleweight, Tommy Hearns at light middle and after the amazing high against Barkley, to Leonard again at super middle in 1989.
He was a tired, old fighter that night but incredibly carried on for a further 12 years.
Even today he barely has a mark on him and remains as sharp as a tack.
● Follow Barry on Twitter at @ClonesCyclone @McGuigans _Gym @CyclonePromo.