Rocky Marciano is considered a brawler by alot of fugasy boxing fans, but everyone knows that his feints are what often opened up his opponents for the fight ending, or in a few cases, career decimating, LEFT HOOK. Sugar Ray Robinson had some great feinting ability, but then again, everything in robinson's arsenal was great. I think Roy Jones, in his prime, had the greatest feinting ability since Sugar Ray Leonard. In my opinion, this is what made him truly great, along with the great athletic ability. feinting isn't only about speed, it's literally about distracting or misleading the opponent into a defensive posture, opening up a weakness at another part of the opponent's body. Roy was a master of this ability, and gave a performance on saturday that caused me to revisit his fights with Toney, Hopkins, Hill and Ruiz to reaffirm that assertion. who else? I know there are others who possess/ed this often unspoken of boxing tactic.
Jersey Joe Walcott. He got Louis 3 times with that walk away and bang move. Archie Moore another good nomination. Good one with Rocky, most don't know that about him.
Recently not too many. Vernon Forrest Bernard Hopkins Roy Jones James Douglas Larry Holmes Riddick Bowe Floyd Mayweather Jr
Great call on Walcott, and if a feint can be defined as a movement to fool your guy into expecting one thing but coming with another, then I'd have to add Willie Pep. His whole game was a feint.
Duran was the best feinter ever in my view. Check his fight with Palomino. He litteraly has Palomino jumping for cover with his feints.
Willie Pep was a master of this. Not just with his punches, but with his footwork and the angles he gave off. He could feint with his feet. Duran had the best right hand feint I've ever seen. He'd gauge the distance with the left, load up with the right to get the opponent's guard up, and close the distance the split second the opponent was vulnerable, allowing him to take advantage on the inside. He did a lot against Palomino, as mentioned, but also against Leonard. People tend to forget this, opting instead to chalk Leonard's inability to stay out of range up to a bad gameplan. He may not have used the lateral movement he was capable of, but he didn't allow Duran to land those heavy shots in the early rounds, either. That is what took Leonard out of the fight early and allowed Duran to overwhelm him for the better part early on until he got his bearings back and started opening up in the later rounds. Duran showed brilliant technical skill as well as relentless aggression in that fight.
Three that stand out were Roberto Duran, Bernard Hopkins, and Roy Jones. In fact, as Hopkins got older, sometimes you'd just watch and say "stop feinting and actually throw a punch!"
The two that stand out to me were Duran and Napoles, however, Locche was excellent as well, as he incorporated the head feint quite well in his defensive repetoire.
For more recent times Juan Manuel Marquez is pretty good at feinting. Against Juan Diaz he feinted an uppercut, which isn't easy to properly do, then he hit with a jab and right cross.
I agree on Willie Pep he also feinted really well with his shoulders. As for Duran he had a great right hand feint. He did one where he has his hand at his chin shaking it he then turns his shoulder to throw the right hand, he then takes a step to his right and powers home a straight right to the jaw. He did this effectivly against leonard afew times.