How good was Sugar Ray Robinson Defensive wise?

Judging by what you've put up, it's not a question but a statement, v. Sugar's only intent was ta killya 'n he took a helluva pounding in the process, sometimes. Fortunately, under the mega-watt smile and silky moves, he was 100% Rottweiler.

 

He might get a 7 out of 10 in terms of defense at his best, but 6-6.5 sounds about right for me.

 

Robinson when he put his mind to it was good defensively, he had good reflexes to avoid punches and his footwork was brilliant to move out of range quickly when required.

Being the offensive fighter that he was though, defense wasn't high on his agenda a lot of the time and he was the sort of fighter happy to take 1 to give 3 in return. I certainly don't think he was great at combining offence and defence at the same time as someone like Duran was for instance

 

He showed some slick moves at times and had nice footwork, but no defensive artist by any means. Not the technique of Archie Moore or the radar and reflexes of Pep.

 

his best defence was a great offence, stilk though that is definitely not adequate to be rated as a great defensive fighter. He simply wasn't. When on the backfoot he could offset his opponents work because his footwork was s sublime, but he would still take punches, the guys who pressed him did best agains him, albeit in the second half of his career.

 

jg,your post say's it all. SRR was a killer at heart.:good

 

About as good as Vitali Klitschko but his better offense and athleticism would make most disagree .
And it is quite a good comparison as he was d Vitali Klitschko of d welterweights . True he was better , more varied , athletic and better offensively and lacked d weight advantage that Vitali also has/had but how many c Vitali take d barrage Smith took from Basilio ? Vitali usually fights back in those circumstances . And it can't b ignored that Smith was KOd during his prime while Vitali never came close 2 it . And I doubt that Artie Levin was better than Kirk Johnson or Danny Williams , he had a better stamina probably but what about other attributes ? And 4 d homos who r going 2 post Vitali's quit , well , so did Smith , didn't he ? in d only time he was matched against a bigger man than himself , whom was still carefully picked due 2 his lack of punching ability @ top level . I guess he was picked not carefully enough :yep
Yes , Smith was post prime vs Basilio but so is Vitali , and 2b fair , Basilio was probably more removed from his prime vs Smith than Smith was removed from his own . yes , Smith's opposition overall was better . But I never forget all of this and this is y Smith makes my top 20 while Vitali doesn't make d top 100 .

 

His defense comes into the 'very good' category,at least. An all rounder in the true sense of the word.

 

His lateral movement and ability to keep distance were very good. His radar wasn't the best, but he rolled with the punches pretty well. Bare in mind he may have been much harder to hit at say WW when he was younger