Multi-Dimensional Fighters....

Barrera went into the Hamed fight as a one-dimensional fighter, people forget... head jab-head cross-body hook - head jab-head cross-body hook - head jab-head cross-body hook.. come forward, a little body movement sometimes, but that was it. For 50 fight straight since he was 15.

He counter-punched Hamed (showing another dimension) and opened in spurts with prior thought instead of rythmically overwhelming the opponent. For me, that paid Hamed an ultimate respect. Barrera was already a legend and close to unbeatable, but completely changed his grain for Naz.....

 

Barrera fought a very cautious fight against Naz. You're right, he showed him a lot of respect. And that's smart because he knew he could outbox him. As long as he didn't get hit with any of those atomic missiles he would be alright. But he put on a clinic and followed his gameplan all night. There were quite a few moments in that fight where i thought MAB could have thrown some more punches but he was very aware of what one punch from Hamed could do.

An excellent fighter going side to side, forward, countering, passive agressive, agressive agressive....

 

Nigel Benn is another.

Formerly one-dimensional (Watson fight), then jabbed and rolled and placed rights (instead of swinging rights) post-Watson, pre-Jimmy Tibbs... then showed awesome lateral upper body movement, body punching, combination punching and off-the-ropes countering, as well as far better footwork... then against McClellan he fought from a really low crouch to get under the long leads and come up with compact hooks and short crosses... so he went from standing up, rushing, swinging constantly at head and wasting, to a flamboyant bob-and-weave style of moving and placing and backing off and countering - but could still get in and brawl and follow-up etc too, still...

The difference between Benn of Barkley/Eubank I and Eubank II is very clear. The difference between Benn of Logan/Watson and Wharton is extremely vast.

 

Chavez hasn't been mentioned yet, has he...?

 

I'm sure we could fit in Billy Conn to an extent, if we were generous.

 

I'd venture Roy Jones aswell, switching southpaw to create different angles and openings, other times he would use the Jab to control the range, later into his LHW career he started to really empthasize body punching aswell, something he rarely did previously.