Controversial boxing opinions

Roberto Duran was painfully boring to watch throughout much of his prime.Thought he was far more exciting as a fighter during his boxer-puncher role against naturally bigger opponents like Moore,Barkley and Sims.



Evander Holyfield has the greatest resume of any heavyweight who ever lived and competed in a more competitive and talented era of heavyweights than that of the much heralded 1970's crop of heavyweights.



While exceptionally quick,Ali's hand speed is overrated and not as impressive on film as many claim.


Joe Frazier is grossly overrated and was not,at any point in his career,a great fighter.Case of being the right fighter at the right time and would have been nothing more than a solid contender in most other era's.

 

Well, all I can say is that this IS a thread about controversial opinions, lol

 

How can a person have 'exceptionally quick' yet 'overated' handspeed? All i can ask is have you seen his finish of Brian London? Not the best opposition granted, but that doesnt make his speed of punch any faster or slower. The only other guy i seen quicker was 'The Waco kid'

 

Overrated in regards to how others rate it.To listen to some,you'd be led to believe that he was in a league of his own in terms of hand speed.To me,his hand speed doesn't stand out any more than several other quick-fisted heavyweights of the past - some being larger than Ali himself - off the top of my head.

 

A lot of posters on ESB consider Floyd Patterson to have possessed the quickest hands of any Heavyweight. Mike Tyson is usually mentioned in the same breath as well.

 

Who? Don't think any poster here would say that his handspeed was a league above Patterson's, or even Tyson's.

 

I honestly think Tyson threw more impressive punches in terms of speed, Patterson obviously as well. Both threw blazing textbook/compact combinations, whereas Ali's variety of punches were typically a lot looser/had less body in them. Then again the torque Ali put on his blows can get underrated, although most people are now coming to that realisation. Definitely one of the quickest in terms of turn-on-a-dime directional movement and punching positioning. Just not in combination like the other two.

 

Nobody specifically - just the general impression that I've got over the years on several boxing forums.


I've just never been blown away by his hand speed to the extent that others have.Exceptionally quick,yes.But unique for his division? Not in my view,no.


His foot speed on the other hand.....

 

I do agree to an extent, G. There's been plenty of very fast Heavyweights. James Tillis, Greg Page, Michael Dokes, etc. Even Brian London himself was fairly fast for a Heavyweight. Not many of these cats were as big as Ali though.

 

in his (short) prime...he was fast as fook...

 

Yup. He looked very, very good for a short period. What happened?

 

..that was the version of dokes that john l gardner ran into...very fast.

drug habit fooked him up

 

I was just going to say that, bad lifestyle. He was a natural though.

 

looked like he'd came from the set of one of those 'penitentiary' films that were out at the time

 

My boxing trainer said an interesting thing, that Ali threw his punches in line with his body (i e concentrating all the energy from the torque in the direction of the punch) so well that he could be relaxed - hardly clenching his fist - on impact and still get good power in the shot. In that way he could throw many punches of decent power without using up too much energy.

He of course acknowledge that Ali could be prone to "slap", hit with the inside of the hand, as well on occassion. But in general he thinks very highly of Ali's punching technique.

And while we're on the subject, I think Ali's technique (punching and otherwise) is underrated on this forum as is his combination punching.