Just something i'd like to say about Pernell Whitaker....

I get where your coming from. I'm not sure whether I'd call it a lack of respect, but the guy oozes confidence everytime he stepped in the ring. I see how you could interpret his defensive techniques as sort of disrespectful, the way he would just drop his hands and slip and dodge countless punches with a smile on his face almost laughing.

The guy was just very confident to go with his amazing ability.

 

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Bits of my favorite example(gets particularly good toward the end):

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I've always felt the same. But it's not as if he was arrogant (he was, but not for this reason neccesarily), what he knew was the truth. He was simply better than everyone else. He toyed with and taunted virtually everyone he fought in his prime, he made absolutely everything look easy. I think Whitaker wanted much more respect and credit than he got because he was so obviously superior, he knew it and he wanted to show everyone else, which is why he showed off so often.

Going into fights, Carlos Monzon looked like he knew he was clearly better than everyone he was fighting as well. Again, I don't think it was arrogance neccessarily, but he just knew what he could do and that his opponent wasn't going to match it, the same thing with Whitaker.

 

I agree with you teeto. He was outrageously arrogant and self confident in his own abilities and sometimes disdained to even TRY in a fight.

It's evident in so many things he did, like punching with a behind the back punch, pulling shorts down, ducking out of the way of a punch and coming up behind a man and tapping him on the ass to let him know that he's 'over here' now, standing in a corner and letting the other fighter unload without so much as putting his hands up, and a common occurrence, not even bothering to try and finish a fighter off when he has them hurt. So many times he would hurt a fighter, but he would not go in for the kill, as if to send the message 'you're not even worth me putting in the energy to stop you, I'd rather just torture you for the length of the bout'.

As I've said before, few ended a Pernell Whitaker fight being physically damaged, but psychologically, they all got KTFO (except Tito and Bojorquez ).

 

Haha, join the club!

There's no one better to watch if you want to see pure skill with attitude. Not Pep, not Ali, not Robinson, nobody. Whitaker is the best on film of all time :good

 

Whitaker was the man. Nelson, Ramirez II, Chavez, McGurt II, and Vasquez. I choose those fights as my favs based on variety over three weights. IMO his jab was as good as it ever was against Vasquez at jr middleweight.

 

Yeah I think it was the fact that he could punch so easily with either hand and his punches were often so unconventional and unexpected, it would be like being slapped around with a blind fold on for the opponent. They were totally disoriented from where he was going to hit them that they didn't know how to react or counteract it.

The Haugen fight is a good example. Haugen got scared to let so much as single punch off because every time he did, he paid for it with combinations in return. He claimed after the fight that he had never been so embarrassed in all his life because he kept getting hit and couldn't do anything about it.

 

Haugen could have a good sense of humour, despite being a bit of a douche.

He was certainly humbled by the greats he fought (Pea and JCC).