In Grouping Your Top 5-10 Favorite Boxers, What Patterns Do You See?

If you view your favorite boxers as a whole, do you see certain trends in your preferences. For example, do your preferences suggest a leaning toward a certain era, or a certain style of fighter.

Here are my favorite boxers;

1. Gavilan
2. Barrera
3. Pep
4. Jones
5. Arguello

Some thoughts:

Style
I prefer boxers and boxer punchers. This embodies the essence of the sport to me.

Era
I like a mix of older fighters and contemporary ones also, those ususally who got me into the sport. Although recently I have taken more of an interest in older boxers.

The human story
Life outside of the ring attracts me to certain boxers. Each of my favorites has some human element that intrigues me (with the possible exception of Jones).

Gavilan- an ex garderner who worked the sugar-cane fields. Barrera- a boxer born into a fight culture but not into the socio-economic setting that typicaly produces great boxers. Arguello- the consumate gentleman and quiet charachter outside of the ring.



Anyways, what trends tend to draw you to boxers?

Thoughts?

 

Benny Leonard
Pernell Whitaker
Barney Ross
Marco Antonio Barrera
Juan Diaz
James Toney.
Nicolino Locche.
Pattern(s)
Leonard and Ross are both Jewish
Leonard,Ross,Whitaker and Diaz held lightweight titles.
Leonard, Whitaker, Toney and Locche were outstanding defensive boxers.

 

Another trend... weight classes. Most of your favorites did their best work in the lower weight classes like mine did.

 

Dempsey
Ketchel
Ali
Schmeling
Frazier
B. Leonard
Duran
Liston
Langford
Mosley

They're mostly pre-80's, they're mostly heavyweights, they mostly have good punching power. That's all I can come up with.

 

Mosley
Whitaker
Tyson
Hagler
Toney


I like for people to have boxing skill, but still have that fire, and be good with brawling. I also love courage, hard work, and high work rate (while maintaing good boxing skill) and determination..Toney is an exception to the last 2, but still I think all of them have that need for retaliation as soon as they get hit though.. Weird how Mosley is my number one though, hes not really a conventional boxer, but I hate when people call him "A Slugger that moves like a boxer" Best description of his style ive heard is from Manny Stewart "A trapper"

I favor the middle to lower weight classes, and I tend to root for southpaws. Dont like your Gatti and Ward type fighters much, but love infighters with good skill, Frazier would be in my top 10 for instance, but dont feel like putting down top 10, cant come with them off the top of my dome heh...that one changes every 10 minutes..

**** Winky though.

 

Yeah, **** him. :thumbsup

 

Hehe, had to clear that up after the "tend to root for southpaws" statement.

 

Whitaker
Jones Jr.
Napoles
Robinson
Charles
Hagler
Greb
Lopez
Gavilan
Arguello

I generally prefer the more skilled, versatile boxers, although Greb's an exception.

edit: I had to take out Arbachakov for Gavilan

 

Roberto Duran
Marvin Hagler
Marco Antonio Barrera
Miguel Cotto
Pernell Whitaker
Bernard Hopkins
Salvador Sanchez
Juan Manuel Marquez
Thomas Hearns

You could say that for the most part, they're multi-dimensional fighters who can box on the outside, counterpunch, fight in close, and show a real variety of technical skills. There's some fighters that are primarily boxers while others could be classified as pressure fighters. All are exciting, at least in my eyes.

 

................Wow; great thread idea. I like stuff like this.


Sanchez
Chacon
Arguello
Hagler
Saad Muhammad
Danny Lopez


One consistent pattern here is that they were all superlative professionals. Well, except Chacon; he often didn't have his mind on things.

They were all action fighters.

I also try to look outside the ring to how they behaved, or were perceived to behave. I like fighters that don't find it necessary to be thugs. They let their fighting do the talking. No trash-talking bull**** here. Let the kids admire those chumps. Tue, both Chacon and Saad were gang leaders before ring fame, but by the time they got into the public eye they had turned things around, especially Saad.

 

It is going to be interisting to see who everyone's favorite boxers are

 

Shane Mosley
Acelino Freitas
Roberto Duran
Muhammad Ali
Floyd Patterson
Meldrick Taylor
Larry Holmes
Hector Camacho (Prime)
Marvin Hagler

For the most part, these were guys who had had speed, could box on the outside, but liked to exchange periodically. They made entertaining fights (although Hector Camacho could stink it out, especially later on in his career).

 

.............Your sig line; Steve Prefontaine. :thumbsup My favorite athlete ever.

 

Roy Jones Jr, Joe Gans, Erik Morales, Kid Gavilan, Barney Ross

All five extremely versatile, skillful and clever boxer-punchers.

 

Duran
Hagler
Ali
Hatton
Nigel Benn

With the exception of Ali, I think its fairly evident that I like brawlers and people that come to fight. Not really interested in outside the ring acheivements (for example I know very little of Hagler and Benn other than their ring accomplishments) but there is a mix of relatively recent fighters and old school too.

To answer your question before you ask it; Duran v Hagler - routing for Duran but knowing Hagler was gonna take it.

Favourite boxer of all time is a toss up between Ali and Duran for me.