Best fighters to film study

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.

 

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.

 

Some great calls above.

Also depends on if you are modelling a style on your own stance, orthodox, southpaw or if you can switch hit.

Ronald Winky Wright, great fighter to study not mentioned used to set traps and very good judge of countering any mistake.

 

Sugar Ray Robinson

 

I get what you’re going for - but watching all and taking inspiration from and exploring different things from different fighters is the most beneficial thing for you.

Outside of that, all the guys mentioned above are great shouts.

I’m not a fan of recommending guys like Hopkins and Ward - they are effective and great fighters, but could be essentially ATG level spoilers that fought like old men.. and I get the benefit and appeal of that, but honestly not everyone has the mental abilities to pull that off (even if it “seems” like a safe way to fight) and even if you did…would you want to?

As far as additions to what’s already been put forth, I’ll throw in:

Evander Holyfield (one of the best inside fighters ever, and honestly was good at everything at every range, and had great fundamentals)

Terence Crawford: Again, the guy is good at everything and fundamentals are top flight.

Marvin Hagler.

 

Evander Holyfield with respect is not close to one of the best inside fighters… there are guys like Duran, Napoles, Toney… I could name a lot of guys if I took 5-10min.

 

I know he’s not known for it, but he was great on the inside - even against much bigger men!

With that said, I totally agree with you - especially the names you mentioned. But I also think their styles would all be much harder for an inexperienced person to play with (unless they had natural abilities that were similar).

Of course, in fighting AT ALL is hard to play with for the inexperienced.

 

Ezzard Charles probably, but study all styles and take bits from them.

 

Yes! all the places you learn from came from a guy trying to hit and not get hit, if he was successful look for why… he spent a long time getting it right, they may just be onto something some greats didn’t notice for instance speaking of Ezzard Charles he’s one of the greatest boxers ever and yet you’ll never learn to fight going right from him but that doesn’t depreciate the value of circling right as Schemling taught us against Louis.

 

James Toney for sure.