Antonio Cervantes

I think there may have been fear in Duran's camp of challenging Cervantes around the time Cervantes beat DeJesus. He made it look easy, won almost every round in doing so while Duran had had two very tough fights with DeJesus, losing one and winning one. He beat another former Duran rival Hector Thompson just months later. Thompson too had given Duran a hard time and went down on his shield. Cervantes' run came to a sudden end though when he faced a 17 year old Benitez who gave the veteran a boxing lesson. He regained the title later but was never the same. By the time Duran left the lightweight division, Cervantes was no longer in his prime even though he held a belt. Duran went for the bigger fights at welterweight. I think Cervantes suffered from fighting in a largely unheralded division while being a serious threat himself. Bigger names could easily pass him by.

I saw Cervantes fight and Duran would have absolutely torn him apart.

Duran fought Hagler, Leonard, Hearns and Barkley all way above his ideal fighting weight. How can you possibly say Duran ducked anybody? :Flush:

no, by the time duran was at welterwieght, cervantes was painfully past it, he was also at jr.WW fighting aaron pryor, i highly doubt duran would fear cervantes of all people

Did Roberto Duran duck him? the question is, was he the only one?