If roberto duran had more professionalism how much more would he have accomplished?

[rightsideup]

He was said to love food and drink to excess. Would he have accomplished more if he had lets say ray robinson"s work ethic.

[SBleeder]

Duran did have excellent work ethic and professionalism when he was in his prime during the 1970s, and still was a beast of a fighter into the late 1980s. Read the latest book about Duran: He trained with incredible intensity when he was a lightweight.

As it is, he's #12 on my all time list... hard to accomplish much more than he did as it is.

SRR liked to party too; he just didn't balloon up to heavyweight between fights.

[wmute]

He would have had a better account of himself in the early 80s starting from Leonard 2, but I do not think he could have ever done anything about the 154 version of Hearns icing him.

[Miburo]

I think he was quite professional during his lightweight reign. After the first Leonard fight he definitely started to rest on his laurels and became more about the paycheck.

[BennyST]

You could see it starting to show up toward the end of the 70s, especially when he moved to 147. He could have stayed at 140 for a bit, won a title or whatever, but mainly he looked soft at 147 apart from the Leonard fight. As it was, he could have stayed at 147 if not for his laziness, even after the Leonard fight.

He could have moved up to 154 or even 160, but stayed in brilliant shape and won all his fights instead of losing and winning some.

But, as it stands he did enough. Could certainly have stayed more in shape and shown up much fitter for his latter career big fights. Imagine a 154/160 pound Duran with the intensity and stamina of his earlier career? He lost so many of his fights because he had no intensity, motivation or stamina and of course all the weight affecting his speed, footwork etc.

You could say this type of stuff about so many fighters though.

[Panamaniac]

He was said to love food and drink to excess. Would he have accomplished more if he had, lets say, Ray Robinson's work ethic?

YES! For one, he would've KO'd Leonard in the second fight, thereby making the third unnecessary...

[rightsideup]

YES! For one, he would've KO'd Leonard in the second fight, thereby making the third unnecessary...

so true ray was bady hurt in the first fight and took advantage of durans glutoney in the second

[Anthony342]

Yeah, that's what Ray Leonard did. He was an opportunist. That's why he waited so long to fight Hagler and then figured what the hell, I'll give Hearns and Duran one more fight each to have those big names on my resume and big paydays.