At heavyweight Tunney and Holmes. Ali was not in their class style wise but more than made up for it with his exceptional natural gifts. His speed and reflexes were off the chart and made up for sloppy ring habits. Wlad was pretty terrific too. The best of the past forty years were Leonard and Mayweather. Whitaker was right there too. Benitez was exceptional but was spotty w his training. At 175 Michael Spinks could be amazing. His bout against Qwai is an under rated masterpiece. Archie Moore w all his KO’s was some master boxer too. If you want to talk about dodge, roll,adjust, force styles Duran is up there w anyone. Funny to think that as lightweight, prior to the DeJesus rubber match, he was most referred to as a bruiser animal. From DeJesus 3 thru Montreal we saw the best of his other skills. Forever to be under rated because of how his career ended is Hagler . When he had his head on straight he was a master himself
Good question. I'll go with whoever could impose their pure skill the best without having to rely on physicality. Definitely makes the thread interesting. For example, I wouldn't state Armstrong as such as his skill relied on his extroadinary physical strength and pressure to be more effective.
Tommy Loughran didn't have power because of bad hands and he still beat a lot of heavyweights as a LHW. That's a sign of extraoridinary skills.
Great mention. Loughran would finish rounds by his own corner, if I remember correctly. Have you ever read his article about sparring Dempsey?
Harold Johnson should be pictured by the word 'textbook'. His jab was exquisite and stufy worthy. He had mastered the unique skill of jabbing whilst moving to his right hand side. He also had great success as a heavy, if memory serves.
Rolling your head with punches is a rare skill to learn. Even rarer to implement. Shows how great Duran was that he mastered it. It became almost nonchalant for him.
Pep lived up to his name 'Will o' the wisp'. Definitely a phantom. His switching and shifting of feet and stances was unparalleled. I think Sanchez is close, though.
I don't consider him a pure boxer,he was a singular talent whose incredible reflexes ,for a big man ,allowed him to get away with breaking the accepted canons of the science of boxing.When his speed began to leave him ,his technical deficiencies were exposed somewhat.
To me pure boxers are guys like. Driscoll Attell Mandell Buchanan Pep Canto Loughran Hill Maxim Graham B Tunney Johnson H Whitaker
One guy who is not mentioned much, but I always loved how natural a fighter he was is Sumbu Kalambay.
