Scale - Poor, Average, Good or Excellent. Defense: Counter-Punches: Power: Jab: Speed: Ring Generalship: Combinations: Feints: Footwork: Body Punches:
Id say just about everything is excellent bar defense and speed...which is still good. He was certainly no slouch in this regard but he really wasnt much a defensive minded fighter and its clear he wasnt exceptional in the speed department, whilst not being slow either. I think his feints, ring generalship and jab are all even better than excellent.
Speed? The Prime Charles easily had top 5 fastest hands in history of heavyweight division. Charles had LIGHTNING quick hands.
Do you feel prime Charles was at heavyweight? I dont and I dont think he was Ali or Patterson fast at the weight from the footage Ive seen. And as I stated pretty clearly he was far from slow. The stuff Ive seen from his lightheavy days he wasnt exceptionally fast compared to the fastest there have been there. It would be easy to say that everything he did is excellent but that wouldnt really be the point of the thread...if I had to distinguish an attribute that wasnt as great as the others speed would be one of them. He was far more about timing and placement IMO then blazing speed.
Charles would scroe excellent at everything. You've missed out durability here. Charles possibly wouldn't get top marks in that category. He'd still come in with a "good" rating
his footwork was far better than average. he went the right places at the right time, just because he didnt move like ali or roy njone s doesnt make his footwork average IMO he waS simply molre effecient.
Based on what? Because it's certainly not the footage. I've always considered a Heavyweight Charles to be rather slow, actually. At least in comparison to the common perception, which falls into place in your post.
Defense: Good Counter-Punches: Excellent Power: Good Jab: Excellent Speed: Good Ring Generalship: Excellent Combinations: Good Feints: Excellent Footwork: Good Body Punches: Excellent
Good is fair as WhataRock elobrated on what he meant by falling short of the Patterson/Ali standard. But "slow" is preposterous by any guage, even north of 175 Charles was often described "fast." "... The fast moving Charles hanged the aging Ray right out of heavyweight boxing with a left hook at 2:43 of the 9th stanza." -United Press
Ah. It was in the papers, so I guess that makes the filmed evidence null and void. Anyways, maybe "slow" was a bit strong, but given his reputation he's always been a bit underwhelming for me to watch (although the fact that the majority of his footage is past prime surely plays a hand in that). I guess it's all personal perception, and I've no doubt whatsoever that he was a great, great fighter.
That fact that he was only ever described as fast should carry weight. The filmed evidence doesn't show a slow fighter either unless we are talking the Holman fights. Charles was generally faster than his opponents at Heavyweight, and against ridiculously quick opponents like Walcott and Johnson his overall speed of hand and foot was still comparable.
Charles was cat-like and brilliant in the ring when he was in his heyday...his performance vs Louis was one of the fights that aroused my interest in boxing.