Who is your Favorite boxer to study??

McCallum far and away for me. The way he always kept his jab working and how he varied how he slipped and countered his opponents lead are the main things.

Marquez footwork against Pac are classics as well.

 

I do that all the time and can just feel all my relatives who lived through those times and have been gone long enough that it's hard to call up the memories without a reminder of what people from that era (born in the 20s) were like.

As far as studying, I think Floyd is rewarding. Some of the fights aren't so exciting but if you watch closely you find new reasons why so many of his opponents had their worst night against him.

 

I am stuck in the 1970's and 1980's as far as boxing goes. I like the boxing now, but it is not what it used to be. I love to study the old fights of that era. Tommy Hearns. I love to see him jab and go upstairs and downstairs and get that right hand in. I like it more when he is calm and picks his shots. Marvin Hagler. Usually too strong for most guys he fought. I do like watching Mike McCallum fight. I think he might be a little overrated now compared to being underrated when he fought, but he was like surgeon the way he fought with precision, and he had good guys to show this against.. A jab is what really offset Mike, and not many guys had that. Although Kalambay really did well, which Mike complained later saying he got to Italy late and was not in tune. A watched a fight recently which I had not watched in years. Duran vs. Cuevas. It was I think in January of 1983. It was a great fight. Another fight I saw recently is McGuigan/Cruz. I understand that McGuigan lost, but I don't understand what happened to his career after that.

 

Meldrick Taylor was an idol I watched and studied coming through...weirdly enough Oscar to.

 

Too many favorites. It depends...sometimes I go by certain skills.
For, example:
Jabs: John Conteh, George Foreman, Virgil Hill
Footwork: Hagler, Tyson, Canizles, Whitaker
Combination punching: JMM, MAB, Joe Louis, Holyfield
Defense: Mayweather, Locche, Qawi

 

I've always been in awe of Whitaker's ring generalship against Greg Haugen.

 

I love this question for the fact that there have been really very few " perfect" fighters.. Perfect means, good defensive skills, good on the inside, half distance and on the outside... Good jab, good foot work, hard hitting, a hard solid chin, good stamina and a big heart... All put together would give you a perfect fighter... How many with all these qualities have you seen ? Give a 10 to those who had or half all those qualities... The only one with a perfect 10 would be Sugar Ray Robinson.. Ali, for many including myself, the greatest of all time, never hit the body of his opponents and when opponent got on the inside would tie them up.. Still the best but not perfect.. Some other great fighters, Bernard Hopkins but no punching power... Chavez had to get on the inside or he would not be that great... Duran was an all around fighter with power but did get hit hard while trying to get on the inside.. Mayweather's defensive skills were like no one but spent 60% of the fight defending and had punching power at all... Manny Pacquiao... so much I could say about Manny but I don't know who was better Manny or the ones that ran his entire boxing career... How the hell did he fight for so many titles and had all those champions having to come down in weight to fight him ?? Champions at 147 had to weight 144 to fight Manny, fighting all guys like Cotto, DeLaHoya and Mosley, they all had to come down in weight at that age to fight him... Fighting for a vacant 154 and Margarito had to go down to 148 or 149 ? simply ridiculous and somehow nobody sees this.. really good fighter but not among the best of the best. Every single one had a very different work out routine and there was something to learn from each one of these champions.. I loved to see Roberto Duran in training so I pick Duran.