Who are the best fighters to watch to understand certain boxing rules or techniques? Finito Lopez is of course one of the first to spring to mind. Miguel Cotto had a very well-rounded style, as did Gennadiy Golovkin, both had a very solid understanding of good fundamentals and punch technique. I've watched a lot of Canelo fights recently and I've tried to pick up on some of the things he does in terms of how sets up his shots and the way he throws the lean-back right uppercut as well as his feint straight right to set up the left uppercut trick. He has a lot of crafty tricks like that which I've noticed and tried to incorporate into my own, I'm looking for a couple other fighters to study to pick things up.
Joe Louis and Alexis Arguello are like textbooks of proper technique. Louis is really good to watch for several reasons and he is a heavyweight and heavies move slower; couple that with his deliberate way of doing things and you can really see where hie weight is and how it moves and flows. Understanding that is the key to being an effective puncher, especially in combination. Jose Napoles is great to watch to learn how your defense and offense should be melded together, how they are the same thing. If you watch, Jose rarely blocks punches. Rather, he uses his feet and he slips punches. If you want to learn how to feint, watch Buddy McGirt. He feinted with every part of his body. It depend on what you are trying to learn.
@Dorrian_Grey I’ll add Emile Griffith to this list he was textbook fighter, loads of experience, took his time you can see how he developed a plan over the course of 15 rounds many times against very good fighters. Tons of film too, Wasn’t overly powerful was about average in size and fought on till his gifts diminished so he had to fully realise his smarts to get on. I think when you study a fighter it should be one you can’t learn mistakes from till you can recognise them, you won’t learn anything bad from Griffith, Louis, McGirt, Arguello.
Some of the perfect balance and delivery in his punches from Joe Louis, the old film footage, still to this day compares and beats often most heavyweights in today's times, was so well schooled.
I'm trying to work on my defence, counter-punching, and feint-game in particular. I've watched some Bernard Hopkins and Andre Ward recently and they've been pretty illuminating in the above regards.
In that case, you wanna practice the slip, slide, roll and counter as taught by the late, great George Benton and perfected by fighters such as James Toney, Mike McCallum, Hopkins, Qawi. They mastered the art of sliding to the inside of an opponent's punch and countering with their own same punch. A hook for a hook. A right for a right. Occasionally, they would switch up and do the more risky catch and shoot, countering with the same hand they used for the block, but primarily, it was the way more economical slip, slide and roll.
You should probably look at some Roberto Duran, too. Skip ahead to some of his fights in the latter half of his career when he’s heavier and thus slower and more deliberate. Even some where he went several rounds with journeymen/opponent types in his USA Network appearances toward the twilight of his career will show you some very good examples of defense, feinting and countering.
