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What: “Champions Forever: The Latin Legends” video tape ($19.95)

Distributor: American Home Entertainment

The defining scene of “Champions Forever: The Latin Legends” shows a puffy Roberto Duran leaning against the ropes of a time-worn ring in the rundown Panama City gym where he was introduced to boxing more than a generation ago.

“The best boxers in the world come from gyms like this one,” he says in Spanish. “Because they are the hungry ones. The poor ones. These kids become boxers because they are looking for a way out through the sport.”

It’s a history Duran and the five other champions featured in the video certainly share: They rose from crushing poverty to become the best in the world at what they did. All of which makes it hard to explain why producer Carlos de la Torre held Duran’s confession until the closing minutes of his 93-minute documentary.

But expressing only a minimal interest in context is not the only fault of this painfully uneven video. For example, why are fight fans Mickey Rourke and Le Roy Neiman ridiculously entrusted with the task of explaining the dominance of Latin boxers, a role they botch by relying on worn stereotypes and cliches.

And although five of the six fighters profiled--the exception being Salvador Sanchez, who died in a car crash in 1982--are interviewed at length, only Alexis Arguello offers any real insight to his career and his life since retiring from the ring.

In addition, the story line skips around quicker than Kid Gavilan in his prime, frequently changing decades, weight divisions and countries in the wink of an eye. For the truly knowledgeable fight fans, able--and willing--to provide their own context and background, the many faults in “Champions Forever” are easily overlooked. The rest of us, however, are likely to have trouble getting past the first round.