{"id":170779,"date":"2025-09-30T16:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/170779\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T16:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:40:09","slug":"roberto-duran-names-the-world-champion-he-faced-who-had-the-best-chin-he-was-the-toughest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/170779\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberto Duran Names The World Champion He Faced Who Had The Best Chin: “He Was The Toughest”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Panamanian great Roberto Duran<\/a> shared the ring with a number of legendary fighters throughout the course of his 33-year professional career.<\/p>\n

Duran made his professional boxing debut way back in 1968 before embarking on a career would span across five decades up until his retirement in 2001.<\/p>\n

He would go on to become a world champion in four weight classes<\/a>, including the undisputed world lightweight championship which he captured back in January of 1978 when he stopped Esteban de Jesus in the 12th round of their Las Vegas showdown.<\/p>\n

The bulk of Duran\u2019s success came during the 1980s<\/a> when he became a member of \u2018The Four Kings\u2019 alongside former rivals Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler<\/a> and Thomas Hearns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Looking back on his memorable battles with \u2018The Four Kings\u2019, Duran made no mistake in revealing Hagler as the opponent that he faced with the best chin in an interview with The Ring Magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hit Hagler with a lot of punches and he just kept coming. I didn\u2019t find him as skilful as some of the opponents I faced but he was the toughest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hagler and Duran locked horns back in November of 1983, doing battle for the undisputed middleweight championship at the iconic Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. After a closely fought bout, the American great would prevail as he defeated \u2018Hands of Stone\u2019 via unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

Hagler made a further four defences of his middleweight titles before he was beaten by countryman Leonard in what would prove to be the final bout of his glittering professional career in April of 1987.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panamanian great Roberto Duran shared the ring with a number of legendary fighters throughout the course of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-170779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}