Which boxer in history had the fastest reflexes?

Yep. I wish he’d retired after Ruiz. Or maybe a defence against Rahman or some other beatable heavyweight then quit.

 

RJJ

 

I do wonder how well you can gauge reflexes as you go backward in time. Worse film would make it harder to fully appreciate someone who had supernatural reflexes like Jones. You might not notice the extent of his abilities.

That said, the guy who has the best reflexes we can fully appreciate is probably Jones.

 

Camacho.

 

It was probably some guy that had a handful of fights but fooled around in the gym and out of the gym and faded away because he thought that his reflexes would be enough.
Really good fighters don't rely on reflexes because they use their mental energy to make the other guy predictable. It looks like you have great reflexes when the other guy does what you made him do.

 

Gaps in reflexes would still have to matter to some extent in fights between skilled fighters, though, wouldn't they?

I ask because older fighters do seem to be have trouble adjusting like they used to, despite having more experience, and despite modern potions extending physical abilities of older fighters compared to 50 years ago. Declining reflexes would partly explain how they're not able to pull off stuff they used to despite being more experienced and still being physically in good shape.

 

Roy Jones>>>>>>>>>>>>everyone else

 

Take a guy like Archie Moore- there is no way in the world that he was as physically proficient at 38, 39, etc...as he was when he was fighting Burley, Booker, etc...but what he learned fighting those guys hid his physical decline pretty well.
Boxing today is based much more in physical advantage and fighters today are not nearly as fight smart as fighters used to be.
You can see it in the weight drain games that get played to get a 6'2" guy to 130. You see it in match making where the goal is no longer to pick opponents that will give you rounds and knowledge- now the goal is not to ever struggle lest he be "exposed."
Even sparring is managed. Guys are afraid to "lose" in sparring and idiots with towels around their necks worry about how the fighter will deal with hard rounds in the gym.
To stop my ramblings...
If your game has always been based upon physical advantage, when you lose that advantage...

 

How much do you think this has to do with actual boxing knowledge being lost?

In other words, do we collectively have about the same technical knowledge about boxing as they did in the 40s, but we're just not teaching it to newer guys well because of the emphasis on physical advantage you highlight?

To use an analogy, is the syllabus the same, but the students aren't taking the time to learn it all anymore?

 

I don't think that many of the teachers took the time to learn. Or maybe there was nobody to educate them.
There is nothing that would convince me that the technical knowledge of boxing is where it was in 1951, nothing that I can think of. Big gloves made it easy to claim that you know how to teach defense because you keep saying "keep your hands up" and slapping them with a pool noodle makes you an expert.

 

Roy Jones

 

Pernell Whitaker was more like a guy with a built in radar

 

Roy Jones has been mentioned ad nauseum (appropriately) so I will go with Michael Nunn. His prime didn't last long but for a short time he was amazing.

 

I'd add Locche, because unlike guys like RJJ and SRL and Camacho, he didn't really seem so fast, yet made guys miss really badly.

 

Agreed. No Heavyweight, and few lighter weight fighters, had better reflexes than Muhammad Ali had in those years you mentioned. I could barely believe what my own eyes saw.