Jose Napoles

He was the dominant force in one of the best performances in Boxing history:

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He'd beat Crawford or Spence today,,in my opinion

 

Also Napoles didn't even 'prime' at 147. He primed late in his 135lb career / 140lb career (which is extremely underrated).

 

He was amazing. Perfect blend of offense and defense. He could do it all. As @roughdiamond says, the Cokes title winning effort was one of the best in boxing history. His win in the rematch and his win over another great welter in Emile Griffith (who may not have been prime but he wasn’t too far past) puts him among the elite 147 pounders. And, again as Rough says, he wasn’t even peak at welter. Crazy.

 

Napoles is in the running as one of the five best fighters of all-time. He was that good. Watch him vs Cokes I, Lopez II, and Backus II to see how he dismantled three different, but all good, fighters. His clear decision against Griffith is hard to watch due to the footage, but you'll see him easily beat one of the best welterweights of all time. Nap was one of the best fighters ever at setting shots up and countering on the front foot. He really was as smooth as butter.

Not only that, but he wasn't a smooth fighter out of necessity. He was extremely talented; being ridiculously explosive, having lots of power, a granite chin, very fast hands and brilliant eyes and reflexes. Throw in his coordination, technical aptitude and endless stamina and you have one of the most talented fighters ever. The only real physical weakness he had was cuttable skin. It cost him a lot.

His resume between 140 and 147 is immense, and he was still a dominant force at 135. He beat two all-time greats in Hernandez and Perkins, and a ridiculous amount of contenders. He beat Griffith, Cokes and a bunch of other respectable welters like Lewis, Muniz, Gray, Lopez, and others. His run at JWW gets more impressive as you learn about the era, but I'll let you get into that organically, because in all honesty, it was one of my favourite things to look into all last year.

 

Absolutely tremendous fighter and perhaps the most fitting nickname in boxing history. The way he could get on the front foot but still remain elusive, slipping shots by inches and responding with whipping counters was mesmerising.

He was technical and smooth, but had a real nasty edge as well. Didn't waste punches or throw just to look busy.

Realistically he'd already proven himself the best at 140 before he even moved up to 147, and he's easily a top 5 Welter in my mind anyway.

Best performance? Well as others have said the first performance against Cokes was nigh-on faultless, but I also love his showing against Ralph Charles. A dangerous banger, but Napoles took his power away from him and ran him out of town. Complete dissection.

Great, great fighter.

 

He was a boxer-puncher in the truest sense of the term in that he could really do both and was a perfect blend of those talents.

 

George, I totally agree. There have been fighters with greater resumés and overall greater achievements but in terms of ability and being the complete package, in my view there just aren’t that many fighters who you could actually say are better than him.

 

second only to Ray Robinson

only weakness was but that was only a factor in one of his fights which means you cant count on him losing on a cut

 

Would he have whipped Duran or Leonard at welter?

I think so

 

In my opinion, he is no worse than the second best welterweight, and #1 would have to fight the fight of his life to keep his position.
Napoles did like to have his fun, and that affected his performance, such as the first fight with Ernie Lopez. In the rematch he almost killed Big Red with as hard a right uppercut as has ever been thrown.