Roberto Duran was one of the greatest boxers of all time – I wouldn’t argue with anyone who wanted to put Duran in the top five ever, he was that good. In this article I take a quick look at one of his techniques which I call the touch and go. The fight featured here is against an excellent opponent named Carlos Palomino.

Now Duran would slow down the speed of his jab, often touching with the double jab and then would quickly fire a hard and fast right hand behind the slow jab. This constant changing of the tempo from slow to fast and light punching to hard punching continuously confused Palomino.

Duran could now use this slow touching of the jab to bait his opponent to counter his jab, the moment he did, Duran was ready to counter his opponents counter with the fast right hand again and follow it up with a hard combo. When Palomino began to anticipate that Duran was slowing the jab down and was going to follow up with a fast right, Palomino began to duck expecting the right hand, Duran though had slowed down the tempo enough to see what Palomino was doing and could simply pause, wait for Palomino to come back up as Duran hadn’t thrown the right hand and then when he did get back up, Duran would then unleash his combo.

Roberto Duran would then begin to add some more wrinkles to this technique knowing now that Carlos Palomino was trying to avoid his fast right off the slow jab. Duran would throw the same slow jab and instead throw the hook off the jab, not the fast right and yet again he would catch Palomino out. If Palomino was ducking to avoid the right, Duran would also instead throw the uppercut to a crouching Palomino off the slow touch jab.

Just to confuse Palomino further, Duran would begin to feint the right cross off his touch jab, by drawing a reaction from his opponent when feinting, it allowed Duran to pick another shot. Duran goes one step further again by touching with the jab, baiting a counter and this time instead of a fast right to the head he goes with a fast right to the body.

For the whole fight Duran just seemed one step ahead of his opponent, constantly catching him out with the right hand off the slow touch jab and then introducing the feint. This really was a masterclass from Duran which showed he wasn’t just the mean brawler many thought of him but also an extremely smart boxer and legend of the game. Watch the video below to see a master at work.