Growing increasingly despondent as a result of the constant ridicule, quite by chance, Durán discovered that he was capable of ending the harassment by utilising his handicap - thus beginning a highly successful career bashing people on the head. Taking advantage of his newly discovered talent for rendering humans and/or animals unconscious, Durán turned to boxing. At the insistence of the WBC medical board he was nicknamed "Manos de Piedra" ("Hands of Stone") as a warning to potential opponents.