Fastest Heavyweight Handspeed?

Floyd Patterson
Muhammad Ali
Mike Tyson
Michael Dokes
Herbie Hide
Tony Tubbs
Evander Holyfield
Oleksandr Usyk
Larry Holmes
Greg Page

Roy Jones Jr. would have been on there as well but it’s hard to include someone who only have one fight at heavyweight.

 

In no particular order.

Joe Loius
Floyd Patterson
Muhammad Ali
Larry Holmes
Mike Tyson
Tony Tubbs
Herbie Hyde

 

Larry Holmes, pre-Norton, was real damned fast.

 

Hopefully I have this time stamped. The 4 punch combination that put Tunney down
even in slow motion is a thing of beauty. In real time it's a blur.

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Good mentions so far, I'd definitely add Jack Dempsey to that group though. Dempsey from his early years looks really fast, though his legs were probably even quicker. Even as an old man, he put up amazing combination on Tunney.

 

I seem to be in the minority but I always thought Dempsey looked faster than Louis.

 

Eddie chambers deserves to be mentioned imo, he had super fast hands

 

tyson

 

True, Dempsey had great hand speed.
But it must be mentioned though that old timers like Dempsey and Louis didn't have that much muscle mass, and that means it's easier to punch fast.
So this makes big punchers with mass (like Tyson) even more impressive. Given how great Tyson's hand speed already was at 215-220 lbs, imagine how much faster Tyson would have been weighing around 200-210 lbs.

 

I agree that Tyson's handspeed at his weight is very impressive, though Tyson couldn't fight at 200 lbs, so this point is moot.

Joe Louis handspeed was excellent even in his second fight against Walcott when he was past his physical prime and 211.5 lbs, so I don't think Louis would bothered by additional 10 lbs of muscles in his prime, especially with modern training methods.

 

I don't see a 220 lbs Louis being as fast as he was at 205 lbs.

 

‘Azucar’ Nikolai Valuev

 

Not the fastest but Louis’ hand speed might be somewhat underrated. It’s just one asset of Louis’ that I think makes him a lot more competitive against Ali than a lot of people think. Versus Baer (I know, not fast himself) the film literally appears as if sped up 1.5 x or 2 x when Joe is punching. And to throw such well leveraged, committed punches so fast is another thing again. Joe’s triple left hooks that put Baer down for the second time were sublime.

 

No Chris Byrd? Even for the mention?

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Dempsey was fast, but he had only turned 32 by his last fight.
I wonder how much of his speed might have been exaggerated by the film speed?
Him carrying the muscle mass of an average modern MW also made it easier.