Simultaneously great offensive and defensive fighters.

Ricardo Lopez. Defense was just as good as his offense.

 

Julio Ceasar Chavez impresses me sometimes with his defense. Some people tend to think he just walks you down and eats punches and bangs your body, but he had a pretty good defense and was good at parrying and slipping punches

 

Packey McFarland. Although hitting with open gloves a lot (not wanting to injure his hands), but throwing so many punches and with such variety and precision, that he overwhelmed most of his opponents. Coupled with superb defensive skills, including footwork (in and out and around the ring), blocking, parrying and slipping.

 

Pernell Whitaker after he realized no amount of weightlifting could give him power.

 

You know, the first two that came to my mind were Tony Canzoneri and Bernard Hopkins. I didn´t mention Hopkins because I expected you to jump in and give an explanation why and that this would be so much better than what I could ever write. And there you are just throwing out names. :verysad

 

Benny Leonard

 

He didn't. He had great legs instead.

Duran and McCallum are the two that immediatly sticks out for me. Chavez another one.

There's not many HWs in this category, but Walcott and Tyson were both pretty good at it. Walcott kept his hands too low, though, and paid the price on two famous occasions. Actually, Patterson is probably a better pick than Walcott. Perhaps also Frazier.

 

He has some nice moves there, but also eats some left hooks he easily could have blocked with a high guard. He's also aided by being much faster and more powerful than his opponent, which means he beats him to the punch and that the other can't trade blow for blow. That will help.

 

Sugar Ray Leonard.

 

Yes I saw that. Very appreciated. :thumbsup

 

As a rule defensive wizards don't very often exhibit great offensiveness enough for it to be appreciated so in response to this I'll initially at great offensive fighters who have exhibited what I think are very good defensive abilities too - the first one who comes to mind is Mike Tyson, another is (and I know some are going to crucify me but Rocky Marciano for me - I've very rarely seen anyone land more than two serious shots in a row - that's in ALL his fights - that's got to count for something - even Jersey Joe Walcott couldn't really establish a consistent jab on him - I've watched all his filmed fights and rarely actually gets hit let alone badly nailed

 

How about middleweight Toney ?