Balance: The single most underated attribute on the forum

Though not afraid to lunge forward with body weight, vintage Dempsey always sought center-of-gravity balance from which to deploy the bob-and-weave and launch his awesome bombs. He was ahead of his time, especially among the heavies.

 

I always thought a 100% prepared Eddie might beat Spinks as good as he was. He was comfortably outboxing Spinks for 5 or so rounds before gassing from extreme weight loss and copping a closed eye possibly from a foul. Spinks improved after this fight but jeez Eddie was smooth early in this fight. Hurt Spinks too at one stage. Even with a personal trainer he was in trouble, have a look at boxrec and see the exact poundage he dropped in the span between fighting Snipes all bloated up then Spinks. 27 pounds in two months. In that day and age it's substancial. I have his Johnson fight somewhere, it's a real schooling. Only flaw was he should have finished him sooner, but gosh he boxed well.

 

How bout wildredo benitez?

 

Post 26 i think someone mentioned him.

 

I mentioned both Benitez and Tunney pages ago. Where is my credit for being a fistic genuis?

Seriously, I am going through a big Benitez phase in my fight watching. He is an absolute pleasure to watch, a true great. All the most heartbreaking his current condition.

 

Yeah, super fighter.

 

Eddie's big risk in letting Johnson off the hook after that first knockdown was in chancing the same type of injury he later sustained against Spinks. Marvin was really roughing him up inside, and Eddie let him steal those rounds away.

In hindsight, I think Eddie was considering how Johnson faded late in his two losses to Matt Franklin. Having already discovered that he could hurt Marvin, he was confident in his ability to be sure to finish Johnson off before 15 rounds were up. It was obvious after that first knockdown that Eddie had his number.

Matthew Saad Muhammad may have gotten the acclaim while Eddie held the WBA title, but it was Eddie, not Matt, who defended his title against Spinks after Mike starched Johnson, and Eddie was more than willing to defend his title in a rematch with James Scott, who very stupidly rejected Eddie's offer in favor of an unobtainable shot at Saad Muhammad. (Unobtainable because the WBC never recognized Scott in their rankings. If Scott had jumped at the chance to take on Eddie again, then maybe as a co-champion he might have had a chance at a title unification with Matthew. However, I don't believe James would have prevailed in a second bout with a motivated Mustafa Muhammad eager for redemption.)

When Eddie decided to pursue heavyweight gold with Archie Moore's help, he claimed that he wouldn't simply let himself get fat, but "good and strong." All through his dismal performance against Snipes, I kept thinking of that quote while wincing at how chunky he'd allowed himself to get. I figured he'd decided to relinquish his WBA LHW belt, since there was no way he'd be able to get back under 175 to defend it successfully, especially considering how quickly he'd packed on the pounds for Snipes. (The difference between Eddie's physique and Renaldo's was rather ghastly.)

Although Mike beat Eddie for that title, I thought the margin of victory on the scorecards was obscene, which convinced me that Eddie would have had to knock out Spinks to retain his championship. Would Eddie have ever been able to do that? The first knockdown Spinks took from Tyson was caused by a right to his body. Eddie was a deadly body puncher, but enough of one to take Spinks out?

 

I think Whitaker generally had very good balance, but from a technical standpoint the crossing of feet that he did often is a no-no, and a few of his KD's had to do with the positions he would find himself in evading shots.

 

what wilfredo benitez accomplished before the age of 18 is immortal

 

Jose Napoles

 

Joe Louis and Marciano always got there body behind a punch....Hopkins

 

Agree w/Napoles as one of the best. When you combine his amatuer record and pro record, he was on top for a long long time.

In recent times, I'd have to say Ricardo Lopez had the best balance. He didn't fall in when throwing a shot and landed punches at that perfect arm extension. And he threw every punch in the book & very very few guys can throw an uppercut with their off hand. If most guys out there throw a left uppercut, they'd fall all over the place and wouldn't have their feet properly positioned to throw a punch like that off their lead foot.
And Lopez would use that balance in there as part of his defense to move just enough to make a guy miss by an inch and still being in position to counter. Lots of guys can make the other guy miss, but they don't keep themselves in that eye of a hurricane territory to throw clean counters from. Not just a punch landed counter, but one at that perfect arm extension. Sometimes Lopez would use footwork and sometimes he'd use that upper body mobility, but that balance was always perfect. I can't imagine how formidible a job it must have been for the opposing trainers when they had to prepare for the guy and attempt to find weaknesses.

 

Yea, Lopez was technical brilliance

 

Absolutely not. Pea was very good at quickly regaining his balance, but flawless balance was not his. Pea had a very basic fundamental error in his footwork ... he oft crossed his feet and this crossing of the feet, left him off balance and prone to being knocked down. Additionally, some of his unorthodox, defensive manoeuvres required him to be off-balance for them to work as well as they did ... Pea was a great, great fighter, but his footwork and consequently, his balance had technical flaws.

 

Eddie did take a bit of a risk tho letting a big hitter in Johnson hang around. Johnson in his day was rated at least a top 5 175 bomber. The big knock on Eddie was often that he was too passive in there. It cost him against Galindez. I do think tho the Johnson fight is a great exhibition at times.

Very true. Saad was in Eddie's corner or ringside cheering Eddie on which was interesting. Saad and Spinks were actually about to come together real soon before Braxton decimated Saad. Spinks would have massacred Saad IMO with his take inhuman punishment then come back to beat opponent into submission style. Way too powerful, not to mention skillful. Saad was a great fighter tho. Spinks is just a bad match.

I'd put the house on Eddie. He said he got intimidated fighting Scott in his prison, excuse or not i think Eddie would have prevailed later.

Eddie was like a pear vs Snipes. He looked bad enough to put people off their food.

Eddie took a lot of early rounds. IMO the KD was the sealer. This fight was almost the tail of two halves. I don't think Eddie could have buried Spinks to the body, but he did neatly outbox him before fading and losing a lot of vision. Spinks could not take many chances against Eddie, unlike vs others, for Eddie had murderous power and did actually hurt him. When Eddie tired and the eye shut Michael upped the ante to take control of the fight.

EMM vs Martin is another smooth as silk performance from Eddie.