Is Technical Perfection More Important Than Speed/Power?

Prior to becoming champion, he was as successful a non-champion as any contender in the lighter weights. He had questioned power, and one boxing periodical said, "Will need a guardian angel to escort him to the title." What happened to Kiko Benes was a bizarre and tragic anomaly, but Davila did manage a successful defense the following year, and a very respectable career overall.

He had the fastest hands of any similarly sized HW Ali could have defended against at the time. Just about everybody says he shouldn't have been in the Astrodome challenging for the title, but that gunshot didn't seem to effect his hand speed. His jabs were pretty fast. (In Muhammad's brief 1970 comeback, the very quick fisted Jerry Quarry also barely touched him. In fact, I think he and Big Cat each landed about six punches.) Chuvalo and Terrell may well have been the only two heavyweights who could have taken him the distance at that stage. (Machen and a rematch with Doug Jones might have offered those possibilities, but of course Terrell had already beaten them in paper title bouts.)

 

I think Ive made my point pretty clear. We obviously dont agree. Advanced technique is not necessary when you have blinding speed. Technique can be applied to the base of blinding speed and it doesnt have to be perfect to be successful or even dominant for that matter.

Thats what trainers look for when a kid walks through the door because they know they can apply technique to that speed. Thats why Roach only needed one session with Pac, and Cus D'Amato only needed to see Tyson spar once and said "there's the next heavyweight champion." Having power and reach are all secondary to the root of speed.

Speed is the root that makes great fighters and really noone is technically perfect, noone, and speed allows fighters to make more mistakes that can't be exploited. Thats why you saw fighters like Jones Jr and Ali with their hands down or leading with dangerous open power shots, but were able to get away with it for so long. They were making blatant technical errors but their speed kept them out of harms way.

 

I don't disagree so much with most of this. I totally disagree with any position that argues that speed is more important than craft, for reasons stated at length.

Thanks for the duel, salty. It's fun having positions tested.