¿Who, in your opinion, was the fastest heavyweight in history?

For a long time I've had Patterson,Ali and Tyson,in that order,as the fastest when it comes to handspeed. Must admit to never giving Dokes a thought but I will be giving him a good look over the next day or so.

Footspeed - Ali easily.

 

Handspeed: Patterson
Footspeed: Ali
Timing/Precision Speed: Louis
Explosive Unorthodox Speed: Tyson
Reflex Speed: Ali
Single Shots: Ali
Combinations: Tyson
1-2s - Ali
Overall Speed: Ali. He had faster single shots, 1-2s, footwork & reflexes than all of them. They all had faster combinations.

 

Roy Jones, if only based on his single fight at heavyweight.

 

Chris Byrd was very, very fast. He was a MW in HW clothing after all.

 

For pure hand speed, I would say Patterson also.

And while Patterson had likely slowed somewhat by age 37, his hands were still insanely fast when he fought Ali in 1972 - at least in that fight, H2H, Floyd proved he was that much quicker on the draw, imo.

While I appreciate that most fans afford Louis very fast hands I would personally rate Joe’s hand speed, at best, as being phenomenal - particularly given the serious power behind each and every punch and also when thrown in lightning fast 4-5-6 multi punch combinations.

I don’t see Louis’ hand speed as being much behind some of the fastest nominations otherwise.

Going further back in time, we can also see that Jack Johnson had very fast hands, and he was afforded same in the literature - but due to the quality/frame rates of the footage, we’ll never know exactly how fast he was.

There’s a sequence during the Flynn fight in which Jack bounces Flynn’s head up and down with a perfectly on point, 5-6 or so punch combo over a duration that I would roughly estimate to be 1-2 seconds.

Suffice to say, Johnson’s hands were a blur at the old frame rate - but under the same filming conditions, his contemporaries didn’t appear anywhere near as fast Johnson did, imo.

 

all the coverage of the Jeffries fight had raves about Johnson’s lightning speed

 

Tony Tubbs usually gets mentioned. When in shape he was fast as was Greg Page.

 

Patterson, Ali, Sanders, Dokes, Byrd are all names that you want to be looking at. Louis at his best was whip-fast too. If you want to count cruiser Usyk as a heavy, then he's in the conversation.

 

If Patterson counts CW Evander and Usyk definitely should, I forgot about Sanders, Sanders had he been taught by Chappie Blackburn with a desire like Troy Dorsey he would’ve never lost at his best and I don’t think anyone would disagree with that @Pat M you talk about Williams and Bonavena coming up in Philly or getting a New York trainer… how about we give Corrie Sanders a great American teacher?

 

Usyk deserves a mention when it comes to footspeed.

 

Am I the only one that thinks Tyson looks faster than everyone else? Patterson included?

I was thinking about this very topic just earlier last week (so much so that when I saw the post title I wondered if I'd made the post and forgot about it lol) and so watched footage of Louis, Patterson, Ali, and Tyson, and it seems like Tyson edges it. The 30lbs weight difference between Tyson and Patterson just made me assume the former would be faster but it didn't look like that.

 

Michael Dokes for handspeed.

 

Patterson could throw his shots very short like Louis did, naturally fast too and significantly smaller he was cat quick. I remember watching the fight with Moore and not understanding how someone with Patterson’s level of skill could beat Archie Moore? it didn’t make sense, Moore just gave Marciano hell in 55 and was busy / successful but a guy like Patterson seemed to intimidated Archie with his hand speed, I think he knew he wouldn’t see the shot that took him out and it made him overly cautious. Patterson would be hell to fight if you were his size or smaller…

 

Floyd Patterson

 

Anybody mentioned Chris Byrd?

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