BoxRec

goose 5 wrote: ↑30 Jun 2024, 21:25 I've been reading a lot of old newspaper articles about the fight. Emanuel Steward- a few days prior to the fight- stated that Duran was a shot fighter. However, several reporters from different papers wrote that Duran looked terrific in training and was in excellent shape. Duran's manager-Luis Spada-stated that Duran ran 300 miles and sparred 200 rounds during his 8 week training camp.

Age, weight, height and styles may have made it a moot point but does the board think Duran was in shape for the fight ?

bennie wrote: ↑01 Jul 2024, 09:21

goose 5 wrote: ↑30 Jun 2024, 21:25 I've been reading a lot of old newspaper articles about the fight. Emanuel Steward- a few days prior to the fight- stated that Duran was a shot fighter. However, several reporters from different papers wrote that Duran looked terrific in training and was in excellent shape. Duran's manager-Luis Spada-stated that Duran ran 300 miles and sparred 200 rounds during his 8 week training camp.

Age, weight, height and styles may have made it a moot point but does the board think Duran was in shape for the fight ?

No, mentally and physically. Duran took the fight for the money. He gave up his WBA light-middleweight title to make it happen and retired immediately afterwards. "It's time to have some fun," he shrugged, "some good clean fun." He was back two years later with his finances dwindling but he went into Hearns thinking retirement, pure and simple. Physically, Duran really struggled to get back down to light-middleweight after Hagler at full middleweight, a fight in which he didn't look particularly small. Duran later revealed in Hands of Stone:The Life and Legend of Roberto Duran by Christian Guidice that making 11 stone for Hearns was one of the hardest things he ever did. This may explain his abysmal performance on the night, swinging like a novice and barely keeping his balance but there are other factors.
Duran faced Hagler in November 1983. He faced Hearns seven months later (originally scheduled for the Bahamas but switched to Las Vegas after Holmes-Coetzee fell through). I remember thinking that Duran desperately needed a loosener before Hearns. Duran had always juggled his big fights with looseners and warm-ups (early round looseners or 10-round warm-ups). However, Duran messed up his right hand in the Hagler fight and that vital loosener didn't take place. I say vital because Duran's recent history had seen him crush Pipino Cuevas in a big fight in Los Angeles, destroy Davey Moore in a big fight in New York and extend Hagler in a superfight in Las Vegas. These fights were back to back. Then came the Hearns fight. Duran was stale, dead at the weight, lacking ambition...
He didn't have great sparring for Hearns. He used Victor Claudio in Panama, an amateur at the time whom he later fought for real in the pros, and Odell Hadley and Billy Robertson in Vegas. Hadley said he had learned more from sparring one round with Duran than he had in his entire career to that point but he was getting paid and quickly dropped off the radar. Robertson failed to beat Philly's fading Curtis Parker a few months later on his own patch in California and also drifted out of the game. As for Hearns, I was never completely sold until he outboxed and outpunched Wilfred Benitez on a 15-round decision in New Orleans in December 1982, disguising a hand injury in the later rounds. Tommy proved that he belonged with the modern greats and by the time of the Duran fight, he was a modern great ripe for a knockout win, having outscored Benitez, Murray Sutherland and Luigi Minchillo going in. Tommy was nice and sharp, strong at the weight, gunning for Hagler and enjoying all the physical advantages. There could only be one winner.