Tyson. Under used but when it landed it had force. Problem is he seldom used it but could've been a weapon.
Having recently rewatched the Duran-Barkley, fight I'd like to toss Barkley a mention. Not sure if I'd call it a great jab per say, but he used it very effectively in that fight, and it had a Foreman like quality to it.
Hi Red; I didn't know about Willie's jab. I think I've got a little footage of him in my vault so I need to go back and check him out. Not to go against the thread; I try to visit a few times each week when I'm able. Brought some work home tonite and have to go but your mention of Willie reminds me of my FAV boxing quote from a fighter...EVER! Early in Willie's career he was moving up and had a, I think, prelim 10 rounder in NY in the 50's (someone may want to find out who the opponent was). Early in the fight Willie got caught with a good shot and went down. He rose and continued. About 30 seconds later, he walked into a big bomb and went down again. Rising on somewhat wobbly knees the ref asked him: "Do you know where you are?" Willie responded: "Hell yes I know where I am...I'm in the middle of Madison Square Garden getting the **** kicked out of me!" The ref let the fight continue. Cracks me up everytime I think about it...have a great evening everyone!
Mark Johnson's whip like jab doesn't get mentioned enough. It's really one of his best tools that sets up his offense.
I would be inclined to agree with you if his name was brought up when people referred to the best jabs ever, but I didn't see a mention there either.
I agree with the mention of Emile Griffith. Specifically if anyone can view his late-career bout with Eckard Dagge, he stuck with the jab primarily over the 15 rounds and I thought he beat Dagge with it, but obviously did not get the decision. Another masterful one-handed performance I've seen is John Conteh over Yaqui Lopez. Really brilliant jab. Yaqui himself wasn't too shabby in that department also. I would also mention 2 dark horses here. One is Gerry ****ey. Known primarily as a left hook slugger type, but watch his fight with Jimmy Young. He rips Jimmy to pieces with it. Don't know why his corner didn't work on that more rather than just slugging. The other dark horse would be Duane Thomas out of the Kronk. He had a brutally hard left jab that he delivered in 'ones' rather than rapid delivery.
Actually, that was not early on as I understand it, but during his career ending title loss to Jose Torres, who dropped him with a hook to the body in the sixth (hence his head was clear between rounds) when referee Johnny LoBianco asked him if he knew where he was, and Willie replied with his classic line. In the early mid 1980's, he was a guest on ESPN boxing in New Orleans to present one of their championships to a winner of one of their tournaments, and remained a youthfully exuberant delight as a guest at their broadcast position. He indicated that Jose's body shot KD was the only time he was down in his career. (I'd want to research that more carefully, but he was pretty explicit and precise about his statistical facts during his ringside interview.) Pastrano's LHW Title win against Harold Johnson has been on youtube in its championship distance entirety, and it pretty thoroughly shows how he stuck and moved his way to the championship over Harold's countering to the body.
Howard Winstone - a loss of the tips of s few fingers on his right hand in an accident necessitated him honing his left. Fred 'The Pumper' Hutchings - streaked briefly with some nice wins until his title shot against Tommy Hearns. His left was really nice and I recall his fight with Kirkland Laing where I got to see it in action.
He was a staple on ESPN's Top Rank Boxing, and extremely well liked by fans of their programs. (For those of you who don't know or remember him, his nickname came not from his jab, but his day job as a gas station attendant. That he was such a blue collar guy aided his popularity considerably.)