Pernell Whitaker: how good was he really?

You are correct. That decision put Whitaker on the cover of Sports Illustrated, made national news coverage, and made Whitaker a near household name.

 

Whittaker was hardly ever in a competitive fight. He made his wins look easy.

Often he would build an early lead and then feast on his opponents mistakes once they had to gamble to catch up.

I wasn't a fan in terms of wanting him to win. I almost alwasy wanted him to lose because he was just so dominant. But I am a fan of him in terms of boxing history.

Just to make a point though I think the LW division has some true greats who might be being sold short despite Pernell's brilliance.

Gans, Leonard, Ross, canzoneri, Armstrong and Duran are all contesting the top spots. Whittaker belongs in there with them and that's as high a praise as there can be.

I agree with Seamus' take on the Chavez fight. Whittaker won but in a rounds sense it was closer than many argue. Had the fight been at 135 I think Chavez would have fared better in terms of weight and age...

The fight with Nelson was a foregone conclusion in my book. there was no way a smaller fighter would move up and beat Whittaker.

To beat Whittaker you had to a defensive master at the same level he was (Joe Gans, Benny Leonard, etc...), or you had to be a strong swarmer able to throw 90 punches ar ound for 15 rounds (Duran, Armstrong) or you had to be an elite puncher (a mini Tommy Hearns, perhaps Ike Williams?)...

If some want to put Whittaker number 1 I'd argue against it but I'd accept that they had a fair argument.

 

I presume you mean #1 at LW?

Yeah I'd agree, my #1 is Duran, PW is #2 in my opinion. But I wouldnt be shocked or surprised to see many put PW as #1

 

yes

 

I'm far from the most knowledgable in here but in my opinion the best boxers are the ones that make their opponents look foolish. And of what I've seen, nobody has made a fool of so many as Pernell Whitaker.

 

Good information! One thing I like about Vann is that , though he is getting on he is tremendously fit and able to keep up with the action,a bit like Mercante Senior was. Really fat referees dont look that competent ,and I think they sometimes struggle when things go pear shaped

 

atsch Helllllll no!

Sweet Pea isn't above Leonard on a P4P status. Hellllll no!

 

Pernell is a superb fighter

but on a pound for pund level you have to take everything into account

Lenoard was offensively better and superb defensively so i would rank him above Pernell but

 

Leonard was very good defensively, but not superb. He got hit far too often to be considered any kind of great defensive fighter. He holds the offense edge against Pea in terms of power, while Pea had a better jab, was better of the backfoot, etc. In that sense they're pretty close. In accomplishments, Leonard obviously has the better top wins, while Whitaker has more quantity in his resume.

 

Leonard's defense was all about movement, more or less, and it's a nice defensive attribute to have. Whitaker had the same with some extras. His defense was more varied. He was much better inside when it came to covering up. Whitaker simply showed more ways to avoid an opponents punches than Leonard did.

Pea not only had a better jab, although some might argue Leonard's was equally as good, but he was busier behind it. It flowed with ease. Leonard tended to study the battlefield with a bit more caution before getting his jab off the mark. One of Leonard's enemies, Hearns, had a similarly fluid style to Whitaker.

Being tentative is just in some fighters DNA, but with Leonard it was combined with his smartness. He knew when to open up with punches and when not to. Leonard was never a wreckless fighter, apart from Montreal.

Whitaker IMO was a more complete fighter. Leonard without question had better power for their respective weights.

When combining everything together, Leonard ranks higher 'pound for pound' mainly based on his better resume. Benitez, Duran, Hearns, and Hagler.

Skills, I give the edge to Whitaker. H2H they are about equal.

 

I agree on the poiints on Leonard's defense, superb is too great a word to describe it.

I do think it is very close in the jab department between the two though, if all aspects are taken into account, Pea's was one of the very best at racking up poiints and setting things up, Leonard's was good in a similar way at times, but for me, Leonard was mainly an offensive fighter, his jab was very smooth how it looked and he could do relevant damage with it.

I would probablt pick Whitaker's though if pushed to pick, maybe because he used it slightly moreso

 

Leonard was a complete fighter defensively imo-very well schooled-though it was never his game to be a defensive specialist.

Benitez was ironically one of his best defensive performances, against the supposed defensive master.

That is really the only fight out of Leonard's high profile bouts where he was able to comfortably fight his own kind of fight...it produced one of the best technical showcases of all-time; his integration of defence and offensive output when able to fight his own fight was top-notch.The other big wins resulted from specifically tailored tactical performances, necessary due to the extremely high level of fighter he was up against.

I think both have advantages over the other in certain areas, but were really very different fighters.Not the easiest to compare.

 

The Benitez performance was definitely Leonard's best, I agree. I thought it was a competitive bout, but not close. Leonard was a step ahead of Benitez throughout the bout.

 

Whitaker's top five performances.

1. Azumah Nelson
2. Jose Luis Ramirez II
3. Greg Haugen
4. Julio Cesar Chavez
5. Buddy McGirt II

When it came to fluid artistic boxing with a beautiful balance of offense and defense, nobody quite did it like Whitaker.

Pep, perhaps. Robinson, maybe.

40 fights or 250 fights. The 30's, the 40's, the 80's or the 90's. Sorry folks, I could not give a monkeys.