Very good or great? Volume 7: Riddick Bowe

Who would you name as technically superior to Liston between Marciano and Holyfield?

 

Uh huh.

 

I disagree, and had the thread played out differently that would have been illustrated. The correct answer is "nobody". Then we look to power, punch resistance, speed, and other factors to build an entire picture. But technical excellence is the building block.

For Ali you would begin with a different factor, namely speed.

Holyfield would be another technician.

Marciano would be workrate and so on.

But technical abiilty and boxing skill are not the same thing. That is, Wladimir is one of the most skillful HW champs at what he does, ever. But technically he is inferior to many for very specific reasons. Another way to say this is that Wlad is technically superb at what he does but lacking as a technician due to gaps in his skillset.

Ali's rope-a-dope and the skills that made it work can be rated highly as a boxing skill, but not as good technique. Individual assets that make the strategy work can be regarded from a technical perspective.

There's no reason, really, to rate technique according to efficiency. But good technqiue must always be affective. In no way do these two statements contradict one-another.

 

Yes, boxing skill, and if you like, technical ability (to do something) but not technical excellence. There is a standard, it is acknoweldged within the industry.

It is "right" to give angles. It is "wrong" to move straight back. A fighter who moves straight-back but (generally) makes it work for him he is demonstrating a boxing skill that he has mastered and he is doing IT "technically" well (within its own definitions) but is also committing a technical sin. Technical sins are obvious factors which can make a fighter very obviously vulnerable - whereupon he needs to rely upon physical abilities to plug these gaps. When he fails to plug these gaps, disaster occurs, illustrated here:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P2mw0CjeQo[/ame]

Technical excellence on the other hand is more like an evolutionary battle. A fighter that consistently gives angles when moving away, who also demonstrates technically excellent footwork and positioning forces the opponent to step up his own game and produce his own technical excellence to nulify the opponents. This is exactly what we mean when we describe Joe Louis as technically brilliant. Not because his jab and cross are correct but because his technical ability allows these excellent punches free reign.

When the opposite occurs, this is the absolute definition of a "Technical mis-match" where on fighter is technically too advanced for another. The losing fighter does not have the technical ability to track down his opponent.

Jones was technically superb at the things he did, but this did not make him a technically superb boxer, although he's actually underated in this department too (not a debate i want to get into now).

By who!?

This is not correct. There is a diamond standard. This is why questions about which fighters are technically the most perfect can be answered. In your version of events, that question really means "who is best at boxing?"

The first question will bring forth answers like Harold Johnson, Orlando Canizales or Juan Manuel Marquez.

The second would bring forth answers like Muhammad Ali and Roy Jones.

You understand the question, and why there are different answers for a reason.

 

That's just how I roll, mother****er.

 

As a bottom line, I'd suggest that what you are describing as technical excellence is boxing ability. Technical excellence is something that very much does exist and is almost universally regarded as being essential in appraising fighters.

Indeed, above you mash up technical skill, skill and ability in the space of two posts. These are not the same things, and their differences are about more than semantics.