ATG Fighters that got by on skill and IQ

All of them. Fighting to your strengths is smart. A skill is a skill insofar as it works. Can't think of an ATG who didn't emphasize what they were good at.

 

Surely the craftiest of them all was Archie Moore. In the days when training was just roadwork, skipping, bags , pads and sparring Archie had a 30 year career and holds the all time KO record which will never be broken at 132.
He literally talked Yvonne Durelle out of their first fight. He knocked out guys who could have been his sons and was still relevant when any hint of athletic prowess was long gone.
Archie was nothing short of a miracle.

 

There aren't any. To be a great you need both. There are lots of guys as smart as May and Pac who lack the physical ability to do what they do. Those people become coaches. You see it all the time in older veteran fighters. They have never understood as much about boxing as they do at that moment but their bodies cannot execute what their brain knows. You need elite ability to operate with elite tactics. That's why even when a top operator doesn't train properly and comes into a fight fat and doughy they get their asses kicked by lesser men.

There have been guys who couldn't punch like Whitaker, Kid Gavilan, Locche, or Loughran. There have been slow guys. Monzon comes to mind and JCC's hand speed was just average. Tommy Hearns, Floyd Patterson, Terry Norris, Wlad Klitschko were known for their weak chins, but all of these guys were exceptional physical specimens in some regard. They made up for a weakness with some strength. In fact, most of the slowest guys I can think of were also the strongest, and most likely to go the farthest on lack of skill like Marciano or Foreman. I don't know that I'd call them slow, but Wilder and Freddy Mills are the poster children for no skill all physical athleticism and success in boxing. To a lesser extent you might add Naseem Hamed into that category. Possibly, Carl Froch. So it's been proven that you can make it all the way to the top on brawn alone. But I've never seen anybody do it all with brains and no athleticism. It's a physical sport after all, not art or chess.

 

That's both a good and bad example. He was only unathletic compared to May and Pac, and I've long maintained that he had better ring craft than either and would have beaten both on an even playing field. But when you watch him in his prime fighting other opponents who aren't all time greats, his athletic superiority is readily apparent. He just wasn't "special." He'd top out at a 7 or 8 instead of the 10s across the board like May and Pac. You just have to look at his record of 40 KOs to know that he could punch. It wasn't all timing.

 

Maybe when he was older, in his forties, but he was a physical specimen in his prime, and usually dwarfed his opponents at middleweight.

 

They weren't strong, but their reflexes were off the chart. They look like ****ing Spiderman the way they moved, doing that Matrix bullet dodging **** like Whitaker. That's a special kind of athleticism. It's rarer than speed, strength, stamina, and durability. It's definitely a physical gift and not a mental one though. Ali, Hamed, and Jones had that in addition to regular speed, strength (not Ali), or in Ali's case an iron chin.

See above

 

Yeah, that dude had bags of athletic talent as far as I can see. Hopkins is a weird choice too. He had a 50% KO ratio which is good but not great. He knocked out 2/3rds of his title contenders at middleweight. A guy like Kid Gavilan who KO'd 19% of his opponents or Locche who knocked out 10%. That's what no pop looks like. At the very least Hopkins had better than average strength even if he wasn't a monster puncher like Golovkin, Hagler, or Julian Jackson. He wasn't fast but he wasn't slow either. Froch was kind of slow. Winky Wright was kind of slow.

 

Sure, but he's not an all time great. He's just alright.

 

He's too heavy handed, too durable, and his hand speed was good at the lower weights before he tubbed up. He didn't have any gifts as a heavyweight where his speed, power, and durability were average, but his greatness consists in that as a middleweight he made it there at all. It's like the old fat middleweight Duran. There wasn't anything physically impressive about that Duran. What's impressive is that he was one of the most physically gifted lightweights of all time and was able to rise through weight classes until his physical gifts were nullified.

 

Anybody who says Floyd is an idiot. He was one of the fastest boxers of all time.

 

He was one of the hardest punching pound for pound boxers ever. That's the definition of physical athleticism.

 

Carl Froch had the athleticism of a turtle, Sven ottke too. Not atgs though.
Manny steward said Tommy wasn't talented at first and struggled skipping.

 

I'm not sure Hopkins is a great shout. When people say that about him they're mostly making comparisons with the preternaturally gifted [and juiced] RJJ, hardly a sensible yardstick.

 

Or that someone taught him how to box.

 

No, Froch was slow but strong and with an unusual stamina. He's the poster child for physical tools being more important than technique because he beat half a dozen guys who were much more skilled than he was. The only physical gift that he lacked was speed. He's got a lot of the same tools and career trajectory as Marciano.