Most Beautiful Boxer to watch ever?

Mike Tyson during the Cus D'amato years was a beautiful fighter to watch when he put his combinations togther.

Alexis Arguello, Tommy Hearns and Pernell Whitaker were fun to watch as well.

 

Ken Buchanan and Jose Napoles come to mind and Marco Antonio Barrera as he was vs Prince Hamed also.

 

Wilfredo Gomez on the night he destroyed Carlos Zarate.

 

No mention of sweet_scientist's favorite Edward Rackley yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9IuUXdanXA

 

Roberto Duran, SRR.

 

Some guys are technicians extraordinaire -Moore, Duran, Arguello, Chavez... but they weren't smooth or poetic really. They were advanced and efficient machines. But machines aren't beautiful. At least to me. Tyson was a machine with comparatively a half-tank of fuel but he fought like a Neanderthal when you compare him to the beautiful fighters who waxed poetic.

These are Robinson and Pep. Tommy Loughren and Holman Williams. Benny Leonard.

I'd throw Ali in there, but his was a stanza compared to the body of work completed by the profilic artists who preceded him.

 

NOBODY beat's the GOAT's ring generalship.

 

Since joining this board, I've been surprised at how many times Mantequilla gets mentioned here. He can be hard to "get" due to being like a Ferrari in cruise control (do Ferraris even have cruise control?), but once he steps on the gas, he reminds you on why he is indeed a Ferrari.

I do enjoy watching the "slow" starters like Napoles, Alexis, Chavez, & etc. Patience, patience, patience. Even Frazier-take a bit, but after a few rounds, he is SMOKIN'.

Tyson was fun to watch during the HBO heyday b/c of the anticipation of the KO-do remember how "disappointed" we would be when it went the full 12. Reminds me of when I followed Hearns-awesome following his path to the showdown with Sugar, & the bitter taste of defeat when he lost.

 

LMAO! Thanks, i really needed that laugh. Tyson was not a beautiful boxer, he was a very exciting and highly talented knockout artist, but nothing was pretty. I would say Pernell Whitaker, Ray Leonard, Muhammed Ali or Ray Robinson would be top canidates for it. I personally would pick Ali. The beautiful movement, footspeed, handspeed, counter punching, combinations ect was the best ever IMO.

 

This is a nice track to this video too.


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:Edit: Damn, i finally got the video up. Took me like 20 minutes.

 

Pernell Whitaker is the most beautiful boxer to watch for mine.

We don't have enough film of guys like Pep, Driscoll, B. Leonard, Locche, Loughran etc. to really appreciate them. They may all have been more beautiful to watch than Whitaker, but I challenge anyone to prove to me that the existent fights with those guy, even COMBINED, compares to the sweetness displayed by the Pea. It doesn't.

 

S_S,

I won't challenge you, but what was your impression of say, Locche or Pep when you first saw them?

You hear much about Pep, but I was pleasantly surprised at Locche. He's a short, squat, balding man who doesn't appear to possess any great physical traits, but he's completely deceiving. Watching him on the ropes, I blurted out "that's Mayweather".

 

Kid Gavilan.

 

I would put Robinson on the same level or even above the level of Whitaker when it comes to boxing skills. Speed is better when you can put the power with it and Robinson was the complete package when it comes to doing that.

 

I'm not too impressed by the footage I've seen of Pep to tell you the truth Nobudius. He does show flashes of brilliance, especially with the way he throws his combos, but he doesn't leave me in awe. Which is fine, I'm not exactly left in awe from watching Whitaker against Andrei Pestriaev and Felix Trinidad, which is about the equivalent stage of Pep's career where most of his fights appear filmed. I've only seen one fight of Pep's in his prime, against Ralph Walton, and the tracking on it was pretty bad and it was terribly slowed down, so it's hard to gauge much from it.

Now, Locche doesn't have much on film either, but we do have a good bit of him in his prime, and what I see is sublime. You're right, he is about the most unathletic fighter you would ever care to see, but he is almost telepathic in the way he can read his opponents moves in order to react to them. And you're spot on about the Mayweather comment too. Locche's defense is probably second to none, but I'd say he isn't as gifted in throwing punches as some of the other great purist boxers are.