Boxing

Roberto Duran

Roberto Duran

Known for his hell-raising career inside the ring as well as partying antics outside of it, Duran - a four-division world champion - is regarded as the greatest lightweight of all time.

Roberto Duran is a former four-division world champion who fought from 1968 to 2001. The Panamanian held world titles at lightweight, welterweight, junior middleweight and middleweight.
Duran was also undisputed champion at lightweight and held the lineal title at 130-pounds and welterweight.

Known for his ability of being both technical and aggressive in the ring, Duran is just the second fighter to have fought in five decades, retiring at 50 after a life-threatening injury.

The Associated Press voted him as the greatest lightweight in the history of the sport.

"Hands of Stone" was part of the most famous rivalry outside of the heavyweight division - later known as the Fabulous Four - which included Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Thomas "Hitman" Hearns.

Lightweight

Following 28 successive victories, Duran's first world title success saw him defeat British legend Ken Buchanan for the WBA and Ring lightweight titles at Madison Square Garden in 1972.
After knocking him down in the first 15 seconds of the fight, Duran would continue his dominance and end proceedings in the 13th round.
Despite tasting his first defeat to Esteban de Jesus in 1972 at junior welterweight, Duran got back to winning ways and added the lineal title to his WBA and Ring belts against Hector Thompson in 1973.

Duran then beat future champion Guts Ishimatsu and avenged his loss to de Jesus in 1974 via knockout.
Duran became undisputed lightweight champion in 1978 with victory over de Jesus in their third instalment, adding the WBC title to his mantel piece.

"El Cholo" vacated his titles to move up to welterweight in 1979. In total, Duran made 12 lightweight title defences, winning all 12 and 11 coming by knockout.

The Fabulous Four Rivalry

After moving up to welterweight, Duran defeated former champions Carlos Palomino and Zeferino Gonzales to earn a showdown with WBC titlist Leonard in 1980.
The bout took place in Montreal, Canada, in the city Leonard had won gold at the 1976 Olympics.
Despite previous success, Leonard received a mixed reception upon arrival to the ring on fight night compared to Duran, who was a massive hit with the crowd.
The crowd proved to inspire Duran, who out-fought Leonard to earn a unanimous decision to capture the WBC welterweight title and become a two-division world champion.

The fight, which originally got announced as a majority decision, is known as the Brawl in Montreal but got turned into a unanimous decision following an error on one scorecard.

No Mas

Leonard immediately triggered his rematch clause and fought Duran in November 1980 - five months after the Panamanian had inflicted the first defeat of his career.
The bout took place in New Orleans and this time round, it was a different outcome with Leonard making adjustments to his game to regain the WBC title.

Duran - who admitted he had been partying heavily since defeating Leonard in their first battle - shouted 'No Mas' which translated to 'no more' in Spanish during round eight to end proceedings.

Duran was adamant he never said 'No Mas' and briefly retired from the sport after the defeat.
The South American brawler confirmed in 2016 that he actually shouted 'No Sigo' which means I won't go on.

Marvelous middleweight challenge

Duran's form inside the ring once he returned dipped, despite winning his next two fights.

After back-to-back defeats to boxing's youngest ever world champion Wilfred Benitez and Kirkland Laing, Duran responded with three successive wins, including an upset victory over Davey Moore to win the WBA junior middleweight title.

His eighth-round knockout of Moore got people talking about Duran again and the Panamanian decided to move up to middleweight to challenge Hagler for the WBA, WBC, IBF, the Ring and lineal belts in 1983.

Duran unexpectedly produced a highly-competitive performance against the American and became just the second fighter at the time to take Hagler the full 15 rounds.
Going into the final two rounds, two judges had Duran leading by a point while the other judge had it level. Hagler would grind out the final couple of rounds to earn victory via unanimous decision [144-142, 144-143, and 146-145].

Malice at the Palace

The following year after being unable to put his WBA junior middleweight title on the line, Duran vacated in order to face Hearns for his WBC version of the world title.
However, the fight would end early for Duran who was knocked down twice in the opening round before being unable to get back up from the canvas in the second round.
It was the first time Duran had been knocked out with his defeat to Leonard being classed as a technical knockout [TKO].

Retirement, return and Uno Mas

After retiring for the second time, Duran would return in 1986 but did not challenge for another world title until 1989 in a fight considered his greatest achievement inside the ring.
At 37, Duran knocked Iran Barkley down in the 11th round and went on to win the WBC middleweight strap via split-decision.
It was named as Fight of the Year by Ring Magazine. His return to prominence secured him a trilogy bout with Leonard in 1989.
Billed as 'Uno Mas', Leonard won a one-sided fight despite suffering three bad cuts on the lip and both eyes. It left Leonard requiring more than 60 stitches.
In 1991, Duran endured another defeat, this time to Pat Lawlor via TKO.
Duran would continue to fight however, and rack up seven consecutive wins before coming up against Vinny Pazienza in June 1994 and January 1995 for the IBC super middleweight title, with Duran on the receiving end of two unanimous decisions.
The first bout was deemed controversial with many believing Duran had done enough having secured a knockdown in round five.
There was no denying who won the second fight though with Pazienza dominating the fight to secure a 116-112, 117-111 and 118-110 verdict on the scorecards.

In 1996, Duran tasted a controversial defeat to Hector Camacho for the IBC middleweight title.

Leonard, who was commentating the fight live, called it an early Christmas gift for the Mexican, something which prompted the American to return to the ring in 1997 and face Camacho.

The following year, at the ripe age of 47, Duran challenged 28-year-old William Joppy for the WBA middleweight championship but took the biggest beating of his career since Hearns and got mullered inside three rounds.
Duran would return to the sport in 1999 having announced his retirement for a third time and avenged defeat to Lawlor in 2000 on his 49th birthday to maintain his status of remaining unbeaten when fighting in his native.
A unanimous decision defeat to Camceho in 2001 would be his 119th and final fight of his career.

Roberto Duran's net worth

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Duran is worth a reported $3million.

Despite highly lucrative purses against Leonard, Hagler and Hearns, Duran reportedly blew an estimated $20million during the peak of his career through living a lifestyle that consisted of drugs, alcohol and women.

Duran is currently the brand ambassador of Panama Blue - a premium bottle of water in Panama.

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