‘Sugar Ray greatest boxer ever’ – Vitaly Klitschko

[Chigaro]

Published: 24 July, 2012, 18:36

WBC heavyweight champion Vitaly Klitschko joined RT in the Russian capital to talk about his boxing idols and retirement plans.

*“I am a huge fan of Sugar Ray Leonard. For me he was one of the best ever,” Klitschko said. “Good movement, good reaction, great technique. He is a great fighter. I like Muhammad Ali, I like Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, but for me, Sugar Ray Leonard is unbeatable – the greatest ever.”

As for the toughest fighter, the Ukrainian faced in the ring, it’s surely former undisputed world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis.

“He gave me a chance to prove my boxing skills against the strongest opponent in my career,” the 40-year-old stressed. “Never ever I fought against such a strong guy with such good boxing skills. I never missed so much. Thanks to Lennox for that great experience that I had. This experience game me big motivation for my next fights.”

“In my opinion, he is one of the greatest fighters ever, the same level as Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson,” he added.

The elder of the Klitschko brothers faced Lewis back in 2003 and lost on TKO due to a deep cut above the left eye, never suffering a single defeat since.

Despite now being 40 years old, the veteran Ukrainian hasn’t yet decided on the date of his retirement from boxing.

“You have to feel that and decide ‘right now it is time to leave the sport,’” the champ stressed. “I hope I'll find the time point when I should do that. Actually, right now I'm 40 – not the youngest in the sport, but my body works, I deliver good performance in the fight. And many young boys don't have power to beat me. Many of them promise, but can't do it.”

There is a good chance that the fight against Germany’s Manuel Charr in Moscow on September 8 will not be the last in Vitaly Klitschko’s career, in which he has so far collected 44 wins in 46 bouts.

[TLG]

sugar Ray was all that :thumbsup:

but let's not forget Marvin Hagler and Roberto Duran were all that too :thumbsup:

Marvin Hagler 62-3-2 .. 52KO
Robert Duran 103-16-0 .... 70KO


one of my favorite fights was Sugar Ray vs Marvin Hagler here is the last round of this epic battle
listen to the after fight comments of Hagler and his thoughts of Vegas ,, you'll get reminded of a recent fight ..
and listen to a classy Sugar Ray



http://youtu.be/4wBPzG7h9OM

[gabbyhayes]

Sorry TLG,, the "no mas" thing ruined Duran's legacy... noone has ever seen such a meek surrender.
He does not belong with the greatest!

[rudee]

well said gabby,,, if yer as old as the real gabby,,, yer n the right place.
What Duran did would be equivalant of Marciano taking a 10 count on one knee.

[LuckyLarry]

Duran shouldn't be mentioned on the same page as Sugar.If you want to see the true meaning of hand speed,youtube Sugar Ray.

[chuck]

duran was a different style fighter than leonard. 'hands of stone' as was his nic was indeed a great fighter. along with all those in that time...hearns, hagler etc.... but in the rematch ( the famed, 'no mas') after duran had one the first fight.....leonard mocked and taunted duran, and as many said, fought like a coward. as a professional, this was the one fight i lost respect for leonard. after duran would not stand for ray's continued mocking the fight was called and sugar ray celebrated like it was his greatest victory of all time? like who wants to win like that? sugar ray was always a cocky kid.

[LuckyLarry]

Sugar was trying to "taunt" a fight out of him.Even that didn't work.Durans' "cement" hands didn't find much.The "No Mas" was far more from the beating than it was from the taunting.Sugar Ray learned the taunt from the best:Ali!
Duran was a joke in that fight,hands of whatever."I'm not gonna fight no more, mamma...Sugar Ray is taunting me!"rotflmao.

[rudee]

Agreed LL,, Duran sure didn,t say NO MAS when they gave him his check did he???
People paid thousands to see that fight!! networks lost millions in advertising.
Ali did worse things than Sugar Ray did
in that fight...i didn't see anyone say NO MAS

[LuckyLarry]

Pretty sure we wouldn't have heard "no mas" if cement hands had of been WINNING the fight...rotflmao.

[TLG]

Larry ,, you are summing up a 119 fight career by one moment in time? .. thanks for the laughs man !
if you take the time to read the following and then watch the video ,, you will surely form a different opinion

Roberto Durán wasn’t just a great boxer; his career was legendary, his boxing accomplishments hard to believe. He fought in 119 professional contests, winning 103 (70 by knockout) and lost only 16. He won titles in four different weight classes and fought in five decades, the 1960s through the 2000s, and he was 50 years old when he fought his last fight.

Oh yeah, when Durán was 14, he reputedly knocked down a mule with one punch! This story doesn’t seem like fiction, because Durán was a fierce puncher whose competitiveness often astonished the crowd. In such a contest, few would have bet on the mule!

Let’s explore the career of Roberto Durán, alias, Manos de Piedra, translated in Spanish as Hands of Stone. Was he truly the greatest boxer of all time?

Mean Streets of Panama

Roberto Durán was born in 1951 in Panama and grew up in the slums of El Chorrillo in the district of La Casa de Piedra (House of Stone) in Panama. Yes, Hands of Stone came from the House of Stone. Who would believe it?

After a brief amateur career, Durán began his professional boxing career in 1968 when he was just 16. Fighting with little professional training, he still managed to win his first 21 fights without a loss, before wealthy landowner Carlos Eleta bought his contract for $300 and then hired trainers Ray Arcel and Freddie Brown to teach Durán the finer points of pugilism.

Durán then went from being a devastating puncher to one with excellent defensive skills. Oh, yes, and he could also throw a great left jab and take a punch, both required attributes of a champion.

First Title Fight

Initially, Durán fought as a featherweight (127 lbs.), but his first title fight was for the World Boxing Association (WBA) lightweight championship (135 lbs.) against Ken Buchanan at the famous Madison Square Garden in 1972. Durán battered Buchanan about the ring for 13 rounds, was way ahead on all score cards, and then at the end of the thirteenth round hit Buchanan with a body shot that Buchanan’s trainer considered a low blow caused by a knee to the groin, which video showed was not the case. Nevertheless, since Buchanan couldn’t continue the fight, Durán won the championship on a technical knockout (TKO).

Thereafter, as far as some people were concerned, Durán was a dirty fighter, though anyone with two good eyes knew he didn’t have to be. At this point in Durán’s career, he was 29 and zero.

Career as a Lightweight

Durán won his first 31 fights and then fought a nontitle light welterweight bout against Esteban de Jesús, who, a stylish boxer, outpointed Durán for ten rounds and won the contest with a unanimous decision. This was Duran’s first loss in 31 fights.

Two years later, in a rematch against de Jesús, Durán, repeatedly landing a left hook to the body, slowly wearing down de Jesús, finally knocked him out with a vicious – and memorable - right cross to the head in the eleventh round. For years, boxing fans remembered that punch. (Please note, in those days all championship fights lasted 15 rounds, not 12 as is the case nowadays.)

Sugar Ray Leonard

Durán, after amassing a record of 62 and 1, gave up his lightweight title in 1979 and began fighting as a welterweight (147 pounds). Continuing to win, Duran eventually squared off against Sugar Ray Leonard, the undefeated WBC welterweight champion. The fight took place at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, where Leonard had won a gold medal in boxing in the 1976 Olympics.

Duran didn’t like the fact that he would be paid one-fifth of what Sugar Ray was supposed to make, so he taunted and insulted Leonard in press conferences before the fight, hoping to intimidate him. Well, apparently Durán shook up Sugar Ray, because in the fight he continually beat Leonard to the punch, winning a unanimous 15-round decision, the fight later dubbed as the “Brawl in Montreal.”

The “No Mas” Debacle

In his first fight against Sugar Ray Leonard, Durán seemed to have the mental edge, which is very important in a fight, almost as important as the physical aspect. But in the second one, fought just five months later, Leonard was determined to intimidate the Durán. For instance, in the seventh round, Leonard wound up with a right handed bolo punch and then hit Durán with his left hand. Then, during the eighth round, Leonard landed a solid upper cut against Durán, who turned and walked away from Leonard and declared, “No más!” (no more), ending the fight. A TV analyst for the fight, heavyweight champion Larry Holmes kept saying “I don’t understand.” Seemingly, only Durán understood why he quit.

This was indeed a humiliating defeat for Durán, and if his career had ended at this point, he could have been labeled the biggest chump in the history of boxing. But Durán did what many people have done in the world of sport and the movies too, for that matter.

Always having a flair for the dramatic, Roberto Durán redeemed himself.

The Big Comeback

On a related note, Durán had a cameo role as a sparring partner in the movie Rocky II, in which the comeback kid himself Rocky Balboa wants another shot at the heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed.

Durán soon climbed back into the ring, fighting as a light middleweight (154 lbs.). He lost fights close fights against Wilfred Benitez and Kirkland Laing. Then Durán signed a contract with legendary promoter Bob Arum and got a title shot at hard-hitting Pipino Cuevas, knocking out Cuevas in just the fourth round.

Also, in November 1983, Durán fought “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler, the great middleweight champion. Durán survived 15 rounds with Hagler, at the time, the only fighter to do so. Durán was ahead on the scorecards after 12 rounds but Hagler prevailed in the last three, winning the contest.

Next, Durán fought another title fight, this time in June 1986 against WBA light middleweight champion Davey Moore. By the fourth round, Durán said he knew Moore couldn’t hurt him, so he relentlessly stalked the champion, eventually knocking him down with a thunderous right hand in the seventh round and the fight was stopped in the eighth, as Moore could no longer continue. As coincidence would have it, this was Durán’s thirty-second birthday. After the contest, the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to Durán, who sobbed openly.

Regardless of the circumstances, Durán was nearly always a crowd pleaser and a hero to Latinos throughout the world, and the infamous “No Mas Debacle,” as the great announcer Howard Cosell dubbed it, became a distant memory.

In 1989, Durán fought Iran Barkley, the WBC middleweight champion (160 lbs). He knocked down Barkley in the eleventh round and then won a close decision. Since Durán was 37 at the time, it is considered one of the highest achievements of his career. Ring magazine called it the greatest fight of the year.

Twilight Years

Now in his forties, Durán continued fighting as a middleweight throughout the 1990s. Against many opponents, he looked very impressive, and he managed to win the NBA super middleweight title in 2000, beating Pat Lawlor. Nevertheless, he lost three of his last five fights, which must have told him something. Finally, in July 2001, he lost the super middleweight title fighting against Hector “Macho” Camacho and retired at . . . 50!

Afterword

Today, there aren’t many professional boxers who will fight in over 100 bouts, much less win 103 of them. There aren’t many who will fight until they’re 50 years old either. Roberto Durán was certainly the last of a dying breed, soon to become extinct, it appears.

But Durán didn’t simply fight for a long time (34 years); he was a great puncher-boxer with a stainless steel jaw and the heart of a tyrannosaurus. People liked him too and enjoyed his panache and ferocity. Only once did he throw in the towel, but he made up for this “bad night” many times over.

Many boxing purists think Durán was the greatest lightweight fighter of all time, and this is almost certainly true. However, many think he was even better – the greatest fighter of all time.


http://youtu.be/ukAKG2ui4Sk

[rudee]

Good biography TLG...
I gotta say... I have seen many many great fighters train...
I saw Roberto train at Caesars Palace in Vegas...
He put on a show that people stood up and applauded..
He not doubt was a great fighter... but he does have that one "stain" on his resume.
He also,, as you well stated, had no problem going UP in weight and fighting much bigger men.
As do the fighters of today.