Roberto

Roberto Durán

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the baseball player, see Roberto Durán (baseball).

This name uses Spanish naming customs; the first or paternal family name is Durán and the second or maternal family name is Samaniego.

Roberto Durán

Roberto-Duran-1994.png

Duran before fight with Vinny Paz

Statistics

Real name Roberto Carlos Durán Samaniego

Nickname(s) Manos de Piedra

El Cholo

Rated at Lightweight

Welterweight

Light Middleweight

Middleweight

Super Middleweight

Height 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)

Reach 66 in (168 cm)

Nationality Panamanian

Born June 16, 1951 (age 62)

El Chorrillo, Panama

Stance Orthodox

Boxing record

Total fights 119

Wins 104

Wins by KO 69

Losses 16

Draws 0

No contests 0

Roberto Durán Samaniego (born June 16, 1951) is a retired Panamanian professional boxer, widely regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time. A versatile brawler in the ring, he was nicknamed "Manos de Piedra" ("Hands of Stone") during his career.[1]

In 2002, he was chosen by The Ring to be the 5th greatest fighter of the last 80 years.[2] Bert Sugar rates him as the 8th greatest fighter of all-time and the Associated Press voted Duran as the #1 lightweight of the 20th century.[3] Many even consider him the greatest lightweight of all time. He held world titles at four different weights—lightweight (1972–79), welterweight (1980), light middleweight (1983–84) and middleweight (1989). He was the second boxer to have fought a span of five decades, the first being Jack Johnson.

He finally retired in January 2002 at age 50 (having previously retired in 1998) following a bad car crash in October 2001, with a professional record of 120 fights, 104 wins with 69 KOs. Up until the second Ray Leonard fight, he was trained by legendary boxing trainer Ray Arcel.

Contents

1 Early life

2 Professional career

2.1 Lightweight

2.2 Welterweight

2.2.1 "No Más"

2.3 Middleweight

2.4 Super Middleweight

3 Retirement

4 Appearances in film/music

5 Career record

6 Titles in boxing

7 See also

8 References

9 External links

Early life

Roberto Durán was born on June 16, 1951 in Guarare, Panama. His mother, Clara Samaniego, was a native of Guararé, Panama, and his father, Margarito Durán Sanchez, was from Arizona, United States of Mexican descent.[4] He was raised in the slums of El Chorrillo in the district "La Casa de Piedra" (The House of Stone) Panama. He began sparring with experienced boxers at the Neco de La Guardia gymnasium when he was only eight years old.[5] He made his professional debut in 1968 at the age of 16.[6]

Professional career

Lightweight

After an initial adjustment he won thirty in a row, and scored knockout victories over future Featherweight Champion Ernesto Marcel and former Super Featherweight Champion Hiroshi Kobayashi, culminating in his first title bout in June 1972, where he controversially defeated Ken Buchanan in Madison Square Garden, New York for the WBA Lightweight Championship. Durán, as a 2-to-1 underdog, scored a knock down against the defending champion just fifteen seconds into the opening round and battered him throughout the bout.[7] He was well ahead on all three cards as the bell rang to end the 13th round, at which time Durán (apparently not hearing the bell due to crowd noise and the heat of the moment) continued to throw a couple of extra punches as Buchanan lay on the ropes. Upon closer inspection of the famed low blow, referee Johnny LoBianco can be seen standing behind Durán as the bell rang and immediately grabbed Durán in a bear hug-like style to pull Durán away from Buchanan. LoBianco can clearly be seen in the video altering the direction of Duran's right arm, pulling it downward as Durán attempted to throw a clean body punch at Buchanan; thus the infamous ridicule of Durán intentionally throwing a low blow was born. Buchanan immediately dropped to the canvas writhing in pain from a groin punch, that Buchanan's trainer, Gil Clancy, said was caused by a knee to the groin (which it wasn't). Referee Johnny LoBianco awarded the fight to Durán, insisting that the blow that took down Buchanan was "in the abdomen, not any lower" (the punch did land below belt line, LoBianco was out of position to see it) and that he felt that Buchanan would be unable to continue fighting.[8] Columnist Red Smith of The New York Times wrote that LoBianco had to award the victory to Durán, even if the punch was a low blow, as "anything short of pulling a knife is regarded indulgently" in American boxing.[9] Buchanan said he left the fight, "with sore balls".[10]

Durán followed up on his title winning performance with several non-title matches. Later that year, in another non-title bout, he lost a ten round decision to Esteban De Jesús. Durán got back on track with successful title defenses against Jimmy Robertson, Hector Thompson and future Lightweight Champion Guts Ishimatsu. In 1974, Durán avenged his loss to De Jesus with a brutal eleventh