Andy Lee is Darren Barkers mandatory.

Unless you're as skilled as Sweet Pea power is important. You need to have enough power to gain the respect of your opponent. Timothy Bradley isn't a huge puncher but he has enough to stop guys from just walking through them. To become a top fighter without even a little bit of pop, every other aspect to your game has to be absolute top drawer (skills/speed/stamina/mentality/ring generalship).

 

Sweet Pea was no feather fist. Granted, he wasn't a banger but using him as the gauge for 'talent over power' is way off base IMO.

Tommy Loughran would be the perfect example.

 

Whitaker had decent power though, he just didn't sit on his shots enough. Not really the best example. Guys like Calderon and Mijares had/have little to no power and are still great fighters. Not to suggest Kavanagh will ever be as good as them, but you don't have to be some kind of sensation to be very successful without power.

 

I never said Sweet Pea was feather fisted. I said you'd have to be as skilled as him to be a top fighter if you had no power.

 

No you wouldn't. Plenty of very good fighters with little power have been successful, and I'd say very close to none have the skills of Whitaker. Unless your definition of a ''top fighter'' is someone at the level of Whitaker that claim is way off base.

 

Yeah, Pea is in the 'insane' category for sure. He sits comfortably, with little danger of being budged for the rest of my life, just outside the top 20 all time on my list (just, at 21, one spot behind Ray Leonard)

Your examples are quality, I'll throw in Baldomir at the other end of the spectrum stylistically :good

 

Baldomir's a good one. Actually, probably a better example than mine as he has absolutely nowhere near the skill-sets of the other two and acheived quite a bit, well, in relation to his ability anyways, both physically and aesthetically, which can be mistaken for being skilled.

 

He was completely average across the board, apart from having a decent beard at his 'best'.

 

Great, that means we'll be having a few months more of this ireland v england bollocks on the forum :tired

 

P4P fighter. I can't think of one feather fisted P4P fighter of the last 20 years.

 

I've already said Mijares and Calderon, both of whom were P4P fighters in the recent past.

 

Yep, as was Ronald Wright.

 

Mijares isn't feather fisted. I suppose Calderon is one though.

 

Cristian is against the very best opposition. His stoppages come from throughly outclassing his opponents, not knocking them out. Excellent, excellent fighter, one of my favourite in fact, but does not hit hard by any stretch.

 

There aren't many P4P fighters that were featherfisted simply because there aren't many featherfists about. How many murderous punching, 1-shot KO artists have been in P4P lists recently? The vast majority of fighters have a level of punching power somewhere in between.