Julio Cesar Chavez and Roberto Duran are hailed as two of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the history of boxing. Now, Mexican boxing legend Erik Morales has revealed who he would favour to come out on top in a fantasy fight involving the iconic duo.
Both Chavez and Duran are hailed as legends in their homelands, with three-division champion Chavez adored as Mexico’s most beloved combatant and ‘Hands of Stone’ seen as a national hero back home in Panama and as the greatest lightweight of all time by many fight fans around the globe.
Meanwhile, Chavez is considered by some to be the most talented fighter to have graced the super-lightweight scene – a division that Duran skipped when he made the iconic jump from lightweight to welterweight and dethroned Sugar Ray Leonard.
Speaking to Luis Parra, three-division conqueror Erik Morales picked his countryman, Chavez, to overcome Duran, if the bout were to take place at 140lbs, but admitted it could be a different story one division down.
“Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I think Julio, without a doubt, at 140, nobody would have beaten him. I don’t think Durán would have beaten Julio at 140, but at 135 I think Durán was very solid. Chávez was strong and solid too, but not as much as he was at 140. I think Julio César Chávez’s best version was at 140.
“At 135 he had some good wins. If I remember correctly, at 135 he fought LaPorte, Edwin Rosario and several others. But at 140, he was more solid. There was Camacho, Taylor — there was another level of boxing there and he was really strong at 140. Durán at 135 was very solid too, he was very tough.”
Both men notched over 100 professional wins in their much-lauded careers and were linked to an exhibition bout against one another in 2016, but it never materialised.
