James Toney probably. No-one thinks of him as a big puncher, but poleaxing Michael Nunn late in the fight, having the iron-chinned Mike McCallum reeling at the close of their first fight, knocking out Prince Charles Williams, finishing Jason Robinson with a single shot and dropping Vassily Jirov up at cruiserweight, and punching the lights out of an admittedly shot Evander Holyfield (but who has ever done likewise before or since, other than prime Bowe?). I'm sure he seriously buzzed Rahman as well at one point. Toney had serious pop. Who else ever had a good version of Mike McCallum in as much trouble as JT did at the end of that first fight?
Given how much we (deservedly) talk of his smoothness, precision, and calm in the ring, Napoles' power gets left out of the discussion quite a lot. He wasn't an enormous banger, but for a guy who was a pretty small man for his weight class, he took down a lot of solid welters. Larry Holmes could wallop with his right when he stood flatfooted, too. I also think that Pernell Whitaker's power might be slightly misunderstood. I think his light KO record speaks more to the extremely high level of competition he fought almost from the start rather than having true featherfists.
James Toney's puncing power not underrated and never was . Maybe it will b overrated someday as it seems here . Nunn was drained dead against him as were Sosa , Barkley & Charles Williams as well . 2b fair , Toney was drained dead @ 160 himself , and usually @ 168 as well Except 4 his 1st few fights there . Even vs Thadzi @ 175 he was drained . love 2 copypaste myself : severely underrated : Oliver McCall Evander Holyfield Lloyd Marshall moderately underrated : David Tua Gerlad McClellan (at least currently) Donald Curry Emile Griffith varying from moderately 2 severely underrated : Mike McCallum Doug Jones Bert Cooper Pacquiao
sven ottke... seriously, he was not a hard puncher, but not the featherfist everybody thinks. reason he rarely koed an opponent was the fact he was always running.
Muhammad Ali no he didn't have the hardest punch but when he planted his feet he had some decent power. Floyd Mayweather has shown some decent power over recent years. As someone said already Gene Tunney
Ali had great timing & speed of delivery.....which created a different type of power. Karl Mildenberger doing a reverse summersault found out.
..during his heavyweight championship days, ezzaed charles was underrated. ..and here's a name you'll never see on a list like this: willie pep. he moved around so much on defense and then came in and threw punches in bunches.....but forget the percentage and look how many kayoes he did score...and some of them were one punch jobs. glad to see gene tunney named here. his right hand to the heart was especially damaging and he could wear a guy down with that and later score a kayo to the jaw.
Freddie Pendleton has to be number one in this category for me. He's always overlooked but the guy was montrous when he hit you on the button. Yory Boy Campas. Segundo Mercado. Juan Laporte. He wasn't much of a finisher but any time one of his opponents talk about fighting Juan, they mention how shocking it was feeling his power.
Laporte was one of the most frustrating fighters ever to watch. You could tell he had all the tools. All of them. He just seemed to fight like he thought he would be penalized if he threw more than 20 punches a round. He just wouldn't let his hands go. Especially after he iced Lockridge. After that, he is the very definition of the guy that fell in love with his power.
