Do you consider Whitaker a technician or not?

Actually, Whitaker has been trying to teach fighters with very mediocre results. I think he even said something along the lines of "it took me a while to realize that not everyone can do what I was doing in there". Not every great fighter is a good teacher, and I don't believe that Pea will ever become a successful trainer either.

No I don't have faith in a comebacking Zab Judah.

 

Who cares if it isn't textbook if it works. The best art is free form, Whitaker was an artist.

 

The word is solidified in boxing...... But in my eyes, a technician could be a fighter with great defensive skills or great offensive skills......
Pernell wasn´t a complete fighter, in my opinion......but he was a defensive technician, of course......As good as Chavez, Duran, Armstrong, all they are examples of agressive technicians....Cutting of the ring, good head movement with pressure skills, offensive techniques and skills........
I always tought the thing textbook=technician slightly vague.....

 

Yeah he could be considered one but not in the textbook way at all. He could use some fundamentals but he was very naturally-gifted and many of his fights show that. As far as not going by the book too much, I would consider Floyd & Benitez technicians though they too had good fundamentals. You don't have to be completely textbook to be a technician. Every technician does not fight like Harold Johnson, Salvador Sanchez,etc.

 

whitaker may have had the skills to fight like a typical textbook technician, but he sure didn't fight like one most of the time... he freestyled! whoever made the comment that you have to have mastered the rules to know how/when to break them, really hit the nail on the head.

this is a good question, but the answer depends on definitions, and i'm not sure if everyone has the same idea of what a 'technician' is... vague term.

 

whitaker is a jazz player in a smokey club, going where the music takes him

harold johnson is a concert pianist playing every note to perfection

 

whitaker was a technician then. he just happened to be a special one who liked to improvise from time to time too.

 

Norris could hit though. Not a devastating puncher by any means but he wasn't a bad technician at all especially in his prime it's just that he was too reliant on speed and that cost him later in his career. When he wasn't too trigger happy he could string together some nice combinations with good effect. His left hook was pretty good as were many uppercuts he threw and also his overhand right. He could throw fluid when he wasn't too anxious to get the ko but I do agree that he sacrificed power for speed in many occassions.

 

A fighter can be accurately described as a technician and/or will generally be labelled tend to be foremost labelled as one, if they are by and large technically proficient.Schooled in and able to efficiently utilise plenty of the traditionally defined(textbook) boxing methods/mechanics to create an effective fighting style.

be it a guy who tries his best to be textbook 100% of the time or someone who doesn't mind getting wild or mixes in a bit of the unique.

I don't think calling a fighter a technician and leaving it at that is going to be too helpful a description for any fighter.Usually you'll need to expand a bit to get the idea of the approach across.I don't agree that the phrase is a stylistic approach in and of itself, even though the word no doubt conjures to mind certain fighters for us all.

Wilfredo Gomez, Whitaker, Marquez, McCallum, Eubank, Harada

All knowledgeable enough to be justifiably labelled technicians of at least a solid level, all very different fighters you would need to expand upon to get the jist of across.

Looking into the minute flaws of great fighters is just going to overcomplicate what is really a broad term.

 

He looped his left. Whitaker was not a powerpuncher, but if he shortened that left up it would have been more effective, but his speed compensated for its wideness and thats why his opponents had trouble countering it.

 

no fighter in history was technically perfect.

Whitaker was as technically skilled as they come

 

I don't think there's any evidence either way as most fighters can't even pull it off.

 

he can be. when hes not bobbing and weaving and dodging punches like a madman he has very good technical boxing skills