Is there anyone in history more fluid/smooth/elegant than Willie Pep?

The only one who comes close in the smooth/fluid area is Muhammad Ali, but I think Pep was the smoothest, most elegant and fluid fighter ever.

The way he was able to casually spin oponents around and miss by 2 feet from 8 inches away was remarkable.

 

Jose Napoles, Benny Leonard come to mind.

 

Seeing how I am relatively easy to hit and am more of a face first type of fighter who would much rather be a defensive wizard, I get very jealous when I watch Willy Pep fight. You hit him a lot if you tagged him (not even clean) 10 times in a round.

 

With all respect due Willie Pep, I think there was a lot of wasted movement and energy there, not enough sharp punching. Same with Ali. That's my opinion; my preference has always been towards the guys, like Napoles, that are a bit more subtle in what they do, and punch a bit harder.

 

An interesting subject.. Of course Willie Pep was phenominaly smooth, but others I would categorise as smooth/fluid/elegant would be Muhammad Ali, Willie Pastrano, Ray Robinson, Jose Napoles, Lionel Rose and Alberto Davila

 

Saddler was 5'9, brah.

Anyways:

[yt]d3kWnH-3IFg[/yt]

 

I know only of one.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VldGL5Un7Ds[/ame]

 

S, sorry to disappoint you, but i agree with you once more !
As posted before, I saw the absolute prime Willie Pep in 1943,make a ****** out of a top lightweight Allie Stolz. Willie won every round. We in the crowd were in awe by his performance at MSG. He was a virtual Will of The Wisp, with his uncanny moves, anticipating his opponents next punches. Now this was FOUR years before his near fatal plane crash in 1947. Doctors said he could never fight again, but Pep DID fight again ,but lost much of his quickness in his comeback. About one year later Pep fought ,was outroughed by the tough tall Sandy Saddler and kod in 1948.
But this was not the prime Willie Pep, that Saddler kod. Not at all. I saw Saddler/ Pep #2 bout on our 10" TV in 1949, in which we saw the greatest escape artist since Houdini, Willie Pep , use every trick in the book to avoid
Saddlers long blows and win a sensational 15 round decision. That was Willie's last hurrah as a great boxer... But he was the second greatest fighter of the great 1940s,as Ray Robinson could do it all and was a great puncher as a welterweight. I rate Willie Pep #2 as a featherweight in the
modern era...Cheers.

 

I just read, in a 'Who did he beat' thread, Peps name being mentioned. Unless im very much mistaken, it was implied he was overated (or something similarly derogatory). I did not bother replying.

 

Jim Driscoll, Benny Leonard and Willie Pep are probably the three top fighters as far as fluidity, smoothness & elegance go.

Would have been great to see a fight with Driscoll and Pep.

 

Whitaker

 

None of that stuff is really Willie Pep at his best either. What we are missing out on are the power and combinations of Pep which put away numerous top ranked opponents. No one is going to make the claim that he was a puncher, but he did have fast hands and tended to catch people with punches they never saw coming. Chalky Wright, Sal Bartolo, Charley Riley, Jackie Graves, Jock Leslie, Humberto Sierra, Eddie Compo, tough guys that were all KO'd by Pep. Safe to say he was a more dangerous hitter than given credit for.

 

Benny Leonard.