Ike Quartey Larry Holmes Miguel Canto Winky Wright Joe Louis Pinklon Thomas Muhammad Ali Sonny Liston Pernell Whitaker Lennox Lewis John Conteh Bob Foster Are good candidates
I think it's between Hearns Holmes Whitaker But Whitaker being a shorter fighter made it tougher for him
Quartey had a phenomenal jab, still don’t quite fathom the technique behind it, it was like a power punch at times. Liston had a jab like a telephone pole. Holmes and Hearns both had excellent snappy jabs with diversity.
Where McCline said "pop" when he threw punches, and Botha would go "ha," your true goat-jabber will give a bellicose "baaaaah" with every such jab he throws. Sadly, Hearns never mastered the goat-jab, so I have to answer no.
I’ve yet to watch it but the movie This content is protected This content is protected might contain the answer to this question as well covering off on all manner of other attributes concerning This content is protected .
As to the actual question I would say no. As to the very best jab ever - I would say nigh impossible if not in fact impossible to say. No jab can prove itself to be the best of everything and above all others. Liston’s jab wasn’t as fast or as technical as Holmes (imo) but then Larry’s jab wasn’t as hard nor as multi purposed as Liston’s (including feints). I love Louis’ jab, ticks a lot of boxes, hard, fast, accurate and powerful - but in some fights, Joe curiously fell off his jab when it seemed he really should’ve kept pumping it for optimal effect and advantage. ODLH had a great jab - but later in his career he too fell off his highly effective jab during a fight - perhaps due to advancing years and faster fatiguing.
He's deep in the conversation, very deep. The things that emanated from it vs Duran were just spellbinding. He was completely blindsided. He busted SRL up with it bigtime as well and Cuevas couldn't lay a hand on him. It carried him to victory over a renowned jabber in Hill all the way up at 175 and it helped take him past a master boxer in Benitez. Without even overly thinking or digging deep that's one helluva jab resume right there.
Maybe not the GOAT jab but Howard Winstone only had a jab after losing the tips of the fingers of his right hand and he beat Vicente Saldivar with it.
It's definitely up there, maybe top 5. At middleweight Golovkin had a hell of a jab (power+utility+range finder).