Which fighters defeated the most different kinds of styles?

Among HWs Wlad should get a mention beat all styles slick boxers, sluggers, boxer punchers, southpaws etc

 

In the post “caveman” era of boxing Ezzard Charles is out of this world.

 

Duran beat all kinds of style
SRL -consummate boxer puncher, could fight any style himself but Duran made him fight his style.
Marcel- Brilliant footwork, slick, unconventional offence
Buchanan-Durable, excellent jab that was nullified, great fundamentals
Fernández, Viruet bros- fast, great movers, canny, hard to look good against, they never looked like winning
Cuevas - Banger, big left hook, showcase of Durans own left hook
Barkley- Massive, huge strength and age advantage.

 

Richard Dunn

 

Julio

 

Mike mcCallum
Collins- Strong tough guy, iron chin
Jackson-Banger, the banger was banged
Graham- slick southpaw, outboxed
Kalambay- excellent all round boxer, outboxed
Toney-great boxer puncher, credits Mike with learning a lot

 

Fighting Harada:

Beat Jofre x2 (one of the best skilled fighters and punchers ever H2H, period)
Beat Medel (one of the best counter punchers ever)
Beat Ebihara (one of the best southpaws ever)
Beat Kingpetch (one of the best jab merchants in his division)
Beat* Famechon (one of the best pure boxers on film)
Beat Caraballo (high level long awkward boxer)
Beat Rudkin (great all rounder and one of Britain's best)
Beat Aoki (savage power punching southpaw)


*We all know that was a win.

Typing this up just reminded me how Harada really was H2H insanity

 

Tyson. Runners like Biggs/Tillis, grapplers like Smith/Bruno, long jabbers like Tucker, speedsters like Tubbs, bangers like Ruddock…

 

Mike always found a way to get into the mid range and throw his short compact punches. Though he actually outjabbed Tucker.

 

Kid Gavilan,think about it..
Carmen Basilio:great infighter with underrated skills,outbrawled.
Johnny Bratton:amazing,slick tippy toe type outboxer,gets pressured to death.
Billy Grahamne of the most underrated jabs ever,got beat at infighting (despite having Freddie Brown in his corner).
Gil Turner:brawler with a polished technique,all around good arsenal..yet still unable to outbrawl Gavilan.
Ralph Jones:a puncher with good bob and weaving ability,outboxed by Gavilan.
Chuck Davey: questionable but his resume was there as an awkward southpaw,Gavilan carried him all the way.
Ike Williams:lanky power puncher with some impressive combos and jabs,got beat by Gavilan twice (tho I'm sure their fights were close decisions)
Beau Jack:hard chin,hard punch..Gavilan pushed that man back.

 

Joe Louis has gotta be up there, he beat all styles apart from southpaws, which isn’t a style, it’s a stance, but can affect things, but strictly speaking styles, Louis beat them all.

 

James Toney

 

Good topic. I believe that some fighters who are considered great can be overrated, due to never having to face certain type of styles - which likely would've been much more difficult for them to handle than those they were more accustomed to dealing with.

Roy Jones Jr. recently made that point regarding Floyd. He pointed it out in more racial tones, saying that Floyd never beat a great African American, but it's basically the same thing, as the issue here is the style. We know He could be very consistent and effective against sluggers, punchers, inside fighters. How dominant or effective He could be in outside, thinking type chess-matches is more of an open question.
Paul Williams and prime Pacquiao would also bring something different for him.

 

If I am to limit within the classically accepted confines of "modern" boxing then John L and it isn't even close.

Usually I am correcting a narrative and so met with defense goons. Here, this time, I get to explain why John L is being underplayed and so under appreciated by the Nat Fleischer/Ring, LPRR vs QB narrative.

LPRR is English. Duh. American boxing is first described to us by English visitors to the Chesapeake, it is again described by English visitors during Burke's reign and again in the 1840s when the American would start organized boxing.

Let any man here, his books, his historians, his research, tell me what those rules are. Is there a single poster here that can tell me what the first rules to US boxing were and how they were enforced?

Nah doe dog, but don't let that stop you from telling me what your favorite historians do have to say.


The rules was, ain't none, this 'murica

Until the law stepped in and made certain resolutions illegal. The first felony on record for any US colony deals with how a planned fist fight can't be decided by castration.

Just sayin' dog, your "wrote the most informational" yada yada blow smoke up their lazy asses BS historian, missed some basic ***** government records style history. So ****in good those guys are they can't even describe the atmosphere accurately.

In a shocking twist most shockingly, American boxing formed around negotiable rules. As in there is no set staple like in England where they use Broughton or LPR as a base and may make changes to said base. There is no basic set of rules for US bare knuckle boxing.

So important you better read that twice

There is no base set of rules for American bare knuckle boxing.

Every fight, every title fight, every time, they agreed to what is and is not allowable.

In stark contrast to the English centralized system the American system was independent and entrepreneurial. There is no Figg's Amphitheater, there is no Pelican Club, no Pugilist Society, no National Sporting Club, or Fair Play Club ... you get me ... none of that.

There was sparring masters competing with prizefighters for trainee dollars. Promotion and spectacle, but in America, the only authority over boxing for most of BK history was legal. As in state laws and such nonsense but nothing resembling an entity whose stated purpose is some semblance of equal opportunity.

The earliest attempt at any unified rules, equipment, authority, etc in America comes off the back of Mendoza-Jackson and generations later when Bill Fuller and Aaron Hewlett opened their stables and created sparring in America in the 1830s. Which they and their successors saw as an alternative to prizefighting. Sparring is not yet a training tool in prizefighting. It is an alternative sport.

What? England's all organized and ****, even Crown backed and ****, so by the time of the British Empire, they're super ready to go all over their colonies crowning champions and inducting them into the British life but in wild stark contrast America doesn't have **** together and what is together not only is not boxing, hence you not seeing those names on any CBZ or IRBO lists of champions, but rather a counter sport doomed to becoming a boxing training program?

Yeah dog. You heard it here first because your historians are actually really, really, really, shitty.

This is back when America was seen as a chaotic backwater to the rest of the English speaking world and most of Europe.

So anyway, the first organization is the Olympic Club in New Orleans in 1883 and it is a sparring organization.

Anyway back to early US ****. Rough and Tumble is what we call US bare knuckle boxing to distinguish it from English or BR-LPR boxing it is contemporary to. The first American champions, so like Hyer and such, all R&T boys. The R&T crowd in America was just as influenced by Cribb-Molyneaux as the LPR crowd in England and abouts but in a different way. They now had sparring masters to compete with and compete they did. This produced American boxers by the 1860s who were talented enough to challenge the British Empire's boxers on their own terms.

THIS is the atmosphere John L was born into.

Of course he fought in bars all the time. Tell me about a single American bare knuckle boxing champion who did not. Rough and Tumble was any time for any reason with any one. Get it, you might lose your balls.

Guns were used to defend titles. Your historians know this and list those defenses because it isn't right to change history. That's not a criticism this time. I'm applauding the choice there to tell the story as it happened.

Anyway, my point is by John L's time the way to make money was proven, it's fighting, but sparring's uses were also proven so now it's a part of fighting. There were no set rules and it was common for boxers to use any sort of fighting they wanted, so wrestling and such, kicks, are okay, unless both dudes agree they're not.

British money always draws the US champion to them which is what kept boxing organized under British rules. At least the "world" titles would be fought on English terms. Until this guy Sullivan came around.

At first Sully really does not give a **** what you come at him with, he's gonna break your neck. It's just the truth. You might get power bombed outside of the ring. Not even playing, read about the dude in newspapers.

Then he has his name and his going rate and the dude just does not give a flying **** what anyone thinks. He's kind of like this big angry hillbilly except he is from Boston. The point is John's not stupid like a fox when he isn't understanding the British way of doing things. He simply doesn't give a **** and if you want to fight him he needs paid and if you want to enforce rules on him you're paying for that too otherwise it's by his and his will favor him.

That's not meant to be a criticism just real, once you're the man you say how **** goes and John really only understood that.

Lacking any nobility in America, like in most cases, that spot gets filled with rich merchant types. Newspapers and such really shaped how people though about boxing in America. Mostly papers until around the 1860s when the whole world title idea was coming around and more targeted media began being printed in large numbers.

The police gazette and richard k fox would be the first to monopolize boxing minds with pseudo-history and fantastic fantasies. While John L was out there doing whatever he wanted against whoever he wanted Fox was trying to cash in on the interest and take the open authority market for himself.

So you got you bare knucklers, and they kind of buy the gazette's bull or at least cash in on the easy marks of their time, and then you've the riotous fan base who is used to fighting at any time for any reason just to prove manhood, and also the uptight brits bitching about der history doe. The old hat sparring masters still trying to claim sparring is the only sport we need. The floppers and kickers. The gun toting gang members. Wrestling, just all of it in general is still an issue. And John L fought all that ****. Fight and agreed rules that are so hella illegal today you'd need a yatch to pull it off because ain't no nation wanting to host it.

**** dog, I didn't even mention John L was kinda modern sized CW-BW and fought dudes we'd call welterweights today because weight divisions, like everything else, were not set but rather agreed to privately.

There just isn't a style or size or setting John L didn't face that he could have. Except a black man.