Roberto Duran
Professional boxer from Panama, and is generally regarded as one of the greatest lightweight boxers of all-time.
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I realized that my body can give me so much more.
He’s good inside, very good, strong physically. The one thing that surprised me the most was his quickness. And his defensive ability. He moves his head a lot, feints a lot. He’s not an easy man to hit.
Duran has always been the master of defense that is one of his trademarks.
There's only one legend. That's me.
At lightweight it seemed he was a tremendous puncher, but I didn't find him to be that kind of puncher. A good puncher, a strong puncher, but not a devastating puncher.
I am not an animal in my personal life. But in the ring there is an animal inside me. Sometimes it roars when the first bell rights. Sometimes it springs out later in a fight. But i can always feel it there, driving me and pushing me forward. It is what makes me win. It makes me enjoy fighting.
One gets the impression of Duran is that he’s a tough, rough brawler who just wades in and ducks nothing. But all you have to do is look at his face to see that is nonsense. He’s not marked up. He does a lot of cute things in there.
Moving fluidly and jabbing, slipping punches and countering rather than swarming over DeJesus, he stalked him, relentlessly wearing him down and coolly destroying him with savage punches to the body. For 11 rounds Duran bested the classic boxer at his own game, robbing him of his speed and his will to fight, and only then did he permit himself the luxury of putting DeJesus away.
Duran has heart. He's been a great champion for years and years. It must have been something very serious to make him quit. But I won fair and square, I beat him emotionally and I beat him physically.
That name, "Manos de Piedra", is true, Hands of Stone. Every punch, and I'm not exaggerating, every punch that he hit me with, from the body to the head, felt like bricks, stone, rocks. He knocked my teeth back. My front, my first 3 or 4 teeth, he knocked them back because he was just so possessed. He was a demon.
Getting hit motivates me. It makes me punish the guy more. A fighter takes a punch, hits back with three punches.
My experience won this fight…. I knew I was in control. I was not scared. He was not hitting me with anything that was hurting me.
Duran knew how to fight. He knew what to do. If he looked at the corner the only thing I ever had to do was pretend to jab, once he was using his jab I knew he’d have no trouble. Even more important he knew how to think. When you talk about great fighters, always remember there was a guy named Roberto Duran. He was never given the opportunity to really display his wares because at his peak, he was overshadowed by Muhammad Ali.
Duran laid back, counterpunching,he's a three-time champion, a very gutsy warrior. I couldn't go in there and get foolish.
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