Like the ring generalship thread, only less Scottish. Who were some guys who blended their offense and defense seamlessly? Are all great counterpunchers by necessity great at integrating the two? Who were some great fighters who were unable to do so? I'll start. Wilfredo Gomez bounced in and out of range firing off hard, accurate combinations. He was difficult to hit, and found his opponents with great frequency. A hell of a fighter. Thanks to GreatA for video. [ame]http://youtube.com/watch?v=wDMgHtoJqZ4[/ame]
Mosley and Morales were the best from recent years that couldn't really combine them well. Pac as well, though he got better at least, whereas the other two got worse. Tito and DLH not that strong in this area either. Riddick Bowe was pathetically bad at it at times.Larry Holmes for a great "boxing" sort of heavy was never very good at it either. Sung-Kil Moon
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GuetcvGWGw[/ame] Also: Chang, Napoles, old Mongoose, Laguna, Marcel, Conteh, Slowfre, Canto, Whitaker, Zapata(half the time anyway), Robinson, Ortiz, Canizales, Mustafa MUhammed, Toney, Chavez, Curry, Starling(when not deliberately just showboating defensively), Benitez(same caveat as starling) Gato Gonzalez, Galindez, Laciar, Pascual Perez I never thought Floyd Patterson was very good here.He could slip shots well and he was strong offensively, but he did one then the other, not quite seamless a lot of the time and if you caught him in his transition he was open and off-balance\unaware a lot. Minter another boxer-puncher who wasn't the best here.Benn and Honeyghan too for Brit fighters.Both could slip punches well, but couldn't seem to remain aware or relaxed enough to integrate it within their combinations and more explosive offensive moments.Benn improved a fair bit here though and was actually quite good at it by the end of his career.
You know Napoles was brilliant at it, but was he any better than say, Kid Gavilan. And are there any counterpunchers who weren't good at it?
More so than Gavvy because he had a far more potent offense, yet he never forsook his defense...again, hence the name Mantequilla.
Chavez Could fight well off the back foot, of course when he decided to go to work in earnest, he could become a Fistic Tidal wave, At 135 he showed this contrasting dual capability against Rosario and Ramirez