Make a list of great fighters who in your opinion were born to fight and another that includes great fighters built in the gym instead.
Duran, Tyson and Nigel Been comes first to mind as born fighters. Calzaghe I would say is a made fighter.
Duran Pipino Cuevas Dempsey Liston LaMotta I'd say Ray Leonard was built,,probably Tommy Hearns. This could be a long subject
A guy like James Toney was on top of his game at a very early age and always seemed very natural. BHOP who lost his first fight was a physical, grinding fighter in his early days that developed into a great cerebral all around fighter later in his career.
Vitali always seemed to be more of a natural fighter than his brother to me, even though I think Wlad had more natural talent.
I think in the current boxers natural: Vergil Ortiz, Oscar Valdez, Josh Taylor, Fury, Munguia, GGG, gervonta davis in the gym: Joshua, Errol Spence, Loma, Teofimo Lopez, Usyk, Berchelt, Haney
I think Ray was a natural because his speed alone sets him apart from most boxers. I think Hearns was natural but was taught to hit harder by Steward. I think he always had it but someone had to teach him to use it. I think Pipino was a natural hitter.
I think some fighters fall into both categories. Barrera for example, known for his early wars with the likes of McKinney and Morales clearly has the instincts of a natural born fighter but then reinvented himself in the gym and rebuilt himself into a smarter more measured boxer.
Great examples. I would say natural born is obviously FMJ being born into a boxing family. I listened to a recent Jeff Mayweather interview where he said Floyd Sr was simulating boxing moves with Jr when he was a baby. Someone that worked into becoming a boxer was Sergio Martinez who took up boxing later after another career. If you watch his earlier fights you’ll see he relied a lot on athleticism before taking his craft serious after the Margarito loss.
Fury - born and bred fighting man AJ - test tube baby Truth is though unless you were in the same gym as these guys from day 1 it's impossible to judge how "natural" they are aka naturally gifted. Still requires years of work to reach the top.
Neither- We are human, with choices to make "Naturals" often times are a product of the environment Duran, Tyson, Dempsey, Barkley ect, ect. A "Manufactured" fighter exists only in resume all men from all walks of life who want to truly be champions train and grind to the best of there capacity.
There is some border why this is hard to tell. One thing is if you fight vs someone with similar training or no. Instincts are instincts, still you need training. I think people naturally are intended to grapple more than to punch. Hook like punch is only one alone thing that untrained person might deliver with devastating force, sometimes even lethal outcome. If he does have natural instinct. Like with kicking: untrained in any combat sport human might kill you if you are on the ground and he might kick you like soccer ball. This is reason why pure grappling on ground is not advisable as sole training for self defense: you never know who might go into your fight vs person who had attacked you with intent to help him. Btw not only kick you when you are on the ground, also even use on you every items available and usable to hit with them you when you are on the ground. Most deadly kicks from untrained persons are when you are on the ground. Natural and naturally gifted? I think experience too does matter. Life experience, there is nothing like life born talent alone without experience. Guys with very good natural fighting instinct might be like this example: kid gets hit with item not bare hands and he naturally, despite with crude methods had grappled vs kid. He later had get punched by someone who really knows how to properly do this business and sorry, get beat up. Nothing wrong with this. Then he learns how to deal with this and most likely next time, the more he gets hurt the more aggressive he is going and is more willing to hurt his opponent after this. I never had bought any claims from any one that had claimed such thing: I never had lost any fight as a kid and teen ( I don't mean here only combat sport ). Most likely he is lying or had been in bully group who had cherry picked someone. I usually had told such ppl like this: " Our HR dept will do candidates selection process and call candidates who passed their selection process". Sorry, nothing else from polite stuff I can't tell to such ppl.
