Hatton

First topic message reminder :

He needs the people he loves around him now because I fear he could do something silly due to depressione etc.

What does height have to do with it Truss, Barkley was an average champion who was fortunate in his career, the task faced beating him in no way compares to the one it takes to beat Hearns. How many instances are there of great fighters beating a fellow great when he's giving up a huge 12" reach advantage.

Make your mind up............You're chucking measurements at me and then saying they don't matter..

I'm saying that reach makes a massive difference up against someone with Hearns style, giving up size to someone who's garbage quite clearly doesn't matter as much.

It's how you deal with the style.....Hearns out-reached most guys......

Hence my appraisal that Duran was clue-less against a stiff jab..

Was he outboxed??????????

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Why are you bringing up no-mas and what's Curry got to do with it...

Reaching my poor fellow......reaching.

Just pointing out much of your personal likes or dislikes come into it. Your deifying of Curry and the demonisation of the infinitely superior Duran was just an example. another is Hamed - was a great fighter in your eyes who just lost the desire - now since you met him and found out that he is a nob hes suddenly a flat track bully.

Never said Curry was the best ever.......He was a disappointment...

He never got beaten and outclassed though...

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Never said Curry was the best ever.......He was a disappointment...

He never got beaten and outclassed though...

Very mature.....

Ah, the old Hearns-Duran debate! It's like Bruce Forsyth or Davina McCall - it just won't go away.

I tend not to fall too emphatically on either side of the line when it comes to this one, these days. There's truth in what Shah and Ghosty are saying, but there's also truth in Truss' argument.

It's hard to deny the basic premise that if a fighter, regardless of him being a Lightweight in his peak years, can take massive credit for winning a Middleweight title (against a man who was big enough to win a belt at 175 lb), then he can also take a kicking for being dominated so brutally as a Light-Middleweight as well. It's easy, in hindsight, to say that Duran had no chance and that it was a silly fight to take against Hearns, but that's not how it was perceived at the time at all. It had been quite a while since Hearns had run through a top class opponent like that, let's not forget, and quite a few scribes felt that his last outing against Minchello, in which he'd struggled at times and been frustrated throughout, had shown plenty of weaknesses that Duran could exploit. There seems to be an idea growing that the boxing world had watched Duran sign to fight Hearns through parted fingers and that everyone knew he'd be destroyed, but that's just not the case.

Ghosty is definitely right in saying that it's basically impossible to find a career Lightweight who'd have much more than a slither of a chance against a peak Hearns at 154 lb, but I still think that Duran's performance in the fight deserves to take a bit of criticism. Being outjabbed by Hearns is fair enough (after all, even the likes of Ray Leonard experienced that!) but once he'd been hurt he made the bizarre decision to keep charging Hearns with his chin high in the air. You can put it down to latino machismo if you want, but it wasn't clever boxing whichever way you look at it. I think size played a part in the crushing result, but you can't totally airbrush out Duran's own shortcomings because of it.

Of course, Hearns did catch Duran early and possibly cold, and he was capable of doing that to anyone when he was in form, but if someone like James Toney can go all the way from Middleweight up to Heavyweight, facing plenty of big hitters along the way, and never be thrashed so badly, I find it impossible to give Duran a complete pass, particularly when you consider that nobody, but nobody, would ever put someone such as Toney in his class.

Don't get me wrong, it's an entirely understandable defeat on Duran's part, and it doesn't bolster the claims that he was, perhaps, ever so slightly overrated as much as the disasters of 'No Mas', Benitez and Laing do, but nevertheless I think it's perhaps worth reading in to more than some others do, and this is coming from someone who bloody loves him some Roberto!

Not sure what being a career lightweight has to do with not being able to get past a jab!!!

Please enlighten me...

I'm confused...

Could Duran not get past a jab?

... or was it only Hearns' jab he couldn't get past?

Khan was knocked out in his last fights in just a few rounds and has lost to worse fighters than what Hatton lost to. Hatton would knock Khan out. Khan has no chin and Haton is too strong for him. Hatton needs to work on his fitness and mabe needs another warm up fight. He wasnt back to his best last night but that is understandable after so long out of the ring so he should not give up hope. Plus he said he was coming back make people proud of him but there will be alot of disappoited fans out here after that last fight so he should not retire on a loss like that.

Gordy wrote:Khan was knocked out in his last fights in just a few rounds and has lost to worse fighters than what Hatton lost to. Hatton would knock Khan out. Khan has no chin and Haton is too strong for him. Hatton needs to work on his fitness and mabe needs another warm up fight. He wasnt back to his best last night but that is understandable after so long out of the ring so he should not give up hope. Plus he said he was coming back make people proud of him but there will be alot of disappoited fans out here after that last fight so he should not retire on a loss like that.

Mate what planet are you on? After 3 rounds last night Hatton looked nothing short of hopeless. He was slow, had no timing, was not strong enough to keep Senchenko away from ring centre and was far too easy easy to hit. The man himself has admitted that he no longer has it, yet you're advocating that having been ko'd by a one paced light punching upright fighter he gets into the ring with a more mobile faster handed fighter? Hatton hasn't knocked anyone out since an over the hill Castillio nearly six years ago. I'm not a huge khan fan, but he would destroy this version of Hatton. If you can't see that you seriously need your head testing.

Khan would be knocked out by Senchenko if he fought him and he would not last 9 rounds like Hatton did. Khan is supposed to be at his best now but Hatton was rusty after coming back after so long so that was to be expected. Id like to see how Khan would do facing Senchenko after not fighting for 3 years. He wouldnt last a round!

It doesn't matter how he'd do after a 3 year long lay off, at the moment i'd make Khan a fairly heavy favourite over both Senchenko and Hatton, i'd have thought you would think the same way as Khan did beat Malignaggi who beat Senchenko.

Gordy wrote:Khan would be knocked out by Senchenko if he fought him and he would not last 9 rounds like Hatton did. Khan is supposed to be at his best now but Hatton was rusty after coming back after so long so that was to be expected. Id like to see how Khan would do facing Senchenko after not fighting for 3 years. He wouldnt last a round!

Senchenko is essentially a poor mans Kotelnik, who Khan beat. He was also stopped by Paulie Malignaagi, who Khan also beat. Khan has his flaws but he would destroy Hatton now. If you can't see after watching last nights fight that Hatton is shot you're delusional. Do you want him to be like Roy Jones and keep making comebacks until he ruins his reputation and his health? He's finished.

Roy Jones is an overrated fighter who did not fight the best how can you compare him to Hatton who takes on the biggest challenges? People are unrealistic they dont understand how 3 years out of the sport can affect a boxer and expect Hatton to be back to his best immediately. He needed to have warm up fights to shake off his rustyness. Malinaggi has no power he said so himself! If he had power he would have knocked out Khan.

I pity you, Gordy.

Gordy wrote:Roy Jones is an overrated fighter who did not fight the best how can you compare him to Hatton who takes on the biggest challenges? People are unrealistic they dont understand how 3 years out of the sport can affect a boxer and expect Hatton to be back to his best immediately. He needed to have warm up fights to shake off his rustyness. Malinaggi has no power he said so himself! If he had power he would have knocked out Khan.

Apart from being DQ in a fight for punching a downed opponent (who he then knocked out in 1 round in the rematch) roy jones went 15 years without losing and then only lost because he went up to HW beat john ruiz then went back down weights and was getting old and past his prime.

You don't go 15 years at the top beating top opponents undefeated by being overrated.

Gordy wrote:Roy Jones is an overrated fighter who did not fight the best how can you compare him to Hatton who takes on the biggest challenges? People are unrealistic they dont understand how 3 years out of the sport can affect a boxer and expect Hatton to be back to his best immediately. He needed to have warm up fights to shake off his rustyness. Malinaggi has no power he said so himself! If he had power he would have knocked out Khan.

OK OK, I can see that you clearly have the intellectual capacity of a pair of soiled underpants, so I'm not gonna spend anymore time banging my head against a brick wall - did enough of that with D4. Goodnight.

Hopkins, Toney, McCallum and Hill were all rubbish Gordy, i'm a fan of Hatton but he doesn't have a win that comes close to Jones' over BHop or Toney.