Most versatile fighters All Time

Hopkins in the sense of having a gameplan for different types of opponent. For straight up versatile then Napoles is one, as is Whitaker. Hagler could fight or box. Archie Moore, Robinson of course, Gavilan. Calzaghe was versatile, he had lateral movement, could fight close, and could box in mid-ring maintaining his territory. Yoko Gushiken was seemingly amazing in this regard.

The last two have question marks hanging over their level of opp, massive ones, but i've seen them do it so i added them.

 

You're welcome, if you haven't seen Gushiken you should watch him, one of the best just to watch that i've seen on film, if you like to watch pure authoritative technicians at work that is. He had a strange career though. Not quite as good as Jofre but not many were.

 

He didn't have many fights, he won a light-flyweight alphabet title, he was rated very highly amongst boxing people, after about 20-something fights he fought a guy called Pedro Flores, he beat him, then in a rematch he fought him again, he was schooling him badly, then in i think round 13 Flores rushed him, and finished him off in round 14. And Gushiken retired, so we can never really rate him very high, because its not objective, but from what i've seen, well i'm very impressed.

Here's some ass ****-

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V78Jqq60UOw[/ame]

 

Robinson definitely. Duran also.
Ali, Napoles, Hagler, Ike Williams

 

Gushiken was somewhat ponderous when it came to getting into second gear when forced to fight on the front foot, though. He'd eventually find the rythym usually, but against a guy like Zapata or Canto I think he could be made to look that way throughout most of the fight. He was much better at mid-range, in an even paced bout or when assuming the counter-attacking role himself. Excellent in that regard. I think Ebihara was slightly the superior of the two given their stylistic similarities.

Anyways, I was doing something like this the other day for fun when breaking some of the greats down based on how well they got off on various technical aspects. My list of those included:

-Jab
-Cross
-Hook
-Upper-cut
-Combination punching
-Counter punching
-Body punching
-Ring generalship
-Defense
-Footwork
-Feinting
-Range fighting
-In fighting

If I'm not mistaken, on a points system (up to 10 points per category) Luis Rodriguez came off best, although there were many in the running. It should be noted that I didn't take into account physical aspects like power and speed, though.

 

Yeah i agree Ebihara was better, Ebihara's one of the best technicians those divisions have seen. I always though Gushiken liked to have his opponent on the back foot though, he has an impressive authoritative style of boxing when the fight's gone down that aisle imo. He's not jumping in head first or anything though yeah, and he does catch shots but in the grand scheme of the fight he's usually in clear control. Nothing is 100% fool proof though. Ebihara is sharper and has a better jab for me as well.

 

Against hapless opposition like Vargas, maybe, but against top notch technicians like Alfonso Lopez, not so much. He was made to look pretty poor in that fight prior to the KO. Lopez never had much of a chin.

 

I've just been watching that fight coincidentally. I saw it largely as how i described him in the last post, Lopez offers movement and some angles for his shots, but Yoko is still in control of the pace of the bout the way i saw it. He's keeping the pressure on without being wild, he doesn't look amazing, but like i said, i don't rate Yoko Gushiken on top of the world so i'm not expecting Jose Napoles. I just like to watch him because i find him an enjoyable fighter, i always say this.

 

SUGAR RAY LEONARD.

We was the eptome of boxing versatily. I will site the Duran I bout and the Hearns I bouts.

In Montreal he did not decide to move. He decided to stand and punch with one of the greatest punchers/infighters ever. He fought on great terms lost a close, close decision. He gave Duran all he could handle and more.

Hearns was actually outboxing Leonard, and give him a bit of a going over. Then Leonard turned into a puncher, and started cranking up that left hook. Hearns was dead in the water after Leonard changed gears.

Benitez got hunted and killed systematically. Hagler was getting circles danced around him for long stretches. Let be real, no one had looked that good against Hagler for years.

 

Srl.

 

SRL is artificial sweetener compared to SNV.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1GCSqJbudo[/ame]

 

Ezzarld Charles.