Were Pep, Leonard, Robinson, Charles and Louis the Technical GOATs?

Duran

 

Hi Buddy.
No.
some contenders :
Jofre
Napoles
Canto
Gans
Ike Williams
Benitez ( at WW )
Moore
stay safe buddy.
Mike.

 

Usyk is certainly a better technician than the great Joe Louis. Also I'd take Floyd over Pep both are legends but man Floyd used all his brain cells on boxing technique

 

It depends what you mean by "technically" better.

It could be argued that Napoles was more skilled than SRR, even though the latter's physical and athletic attributes meant he was clearly the greater fighter.

 

this is why I hate these lists or speculative queries,

nothing personal to posters & people, we have been so programmed to such stats & ways of analyses, i.e 'achievements'... all wrong & insulting actually to both Boxers & History.

5 Names Listed, though it is an open question, but 5 names listed out of THOUSANDS of Boxers...

of which there are equally thousands of excellent & first class technical great fighters over the 150 years.

To me it's not only a sad indictment against the Boxers, but just a completely inaccurate and vastly, and always will be, a futile endeavor.

though I get why we 'feel' that's how we do things... we don't have too.

i.e a George Groves a lovely technical boxer, a Josh Warrington too, great to watch his fluidity, what about Amir Khan and on & on we go, where it stops nobody knows.

Thousands of sound & great technical boxers have climbed in & out of the Ring.

 

In their respective divisions and talking about purely technical ability?
126: Arguello, maybe Barrera
135: Duran, Chavez, even Gans I think is more impressive than Benny Leonard
147: SRL, FMJ
175: Spinks, Ward
HW: Usyk, Holmes

 

Lol at Usyk > Louis. Dreamland.

The two guys who are in their company who are missing here, are Duran and Napoles. Whitaker, Floyd, Canto and Moore are on that level and you could argue that Jones, Leonard, Hagler & Pacquiao too.

 

lw - maybe Ike Williams?
ww - I think there were a handful of fighters that were better than SRR from a purely technical perspective - Gavilan, Whitaker, Napoles, maybe Luis Rodriguez.
lhw - Harold Johnson?

 

I would add guys like Kid Gavilan, Alexis Arguello, Ken Buchanan, Roberto Duran, Salvador Sanchez and Usyk

 

Would Canzoneri and Wolgast also be there or would they be under the 'Jones, Leonard, Hagler, Pacquiao' tier? Perhaps there's not enough footage of Wolgast to make a judgement.

I guess it also depends on what we even think the question means. Is most technical about 'pure technique' like following the fundamentals the best? Then it seems like Canzoneri, Wolgast, Jones and some others would not make the cut.

 

I'm sure they could; but I'd need to see more footage. I like what I saw of Canz but it's been years since I last watched, and right around the time I learned who Wolgast was, most of what was available was taken down

To me, the most technical is sort of akin to saying "deepest bag of tricks". The mechanics of the techniques themselves matter to me a lot less than A) how they're used, and B) the effectiveness of them. I'm talking about tactics here, more than technique, but without tactics the technique is completely and utterly irrelevant.

 

If we had more footage of Holman Williams I'd bet he'd be in there. George Benton was a master of his style and taught some great moves to the likes of Whitaker and Holyfield among many others. There's loads of top technicians from the 40's and 50's.

 

Same with Burley.