Who was operating at the highest level

It's silly o' clock and I'm sparking a zoot - perfect.

Now a Ted Spoon comment inspired this thread and it's been brewing for a few days now. When talking about Jose Napoles, he said something along the lines of; 'he was like a virtual boxing game stuck on ultra advanced.'

What a perfect summation. Anyway, it struck me then and still, about who the most skillful fighter was. I made a vague thread about this recently but we'll go into more detail here.

It's open for interpretation. How do you judge skill, or further, intelligence? Thinking caps will need to be worn if we are to come up with anything more than just another name-listing topic.

Some reflex based fighters such as Roy Jones may not appear to be as skillful as some of the old craftsmen. But then pulling off some of Jones' moves can't be easy. Pernell Whitaker's punches from behind his back may not be effective, or even particularly skillful, but it shows a measure of command in the ring.

There's a lot to judge, but let's think of it in gaming terms like the above quote. In a boxing game, if there were difficulty ratings, who'd be at the very hardest level? Who pulled off the most spectacular ****? Might even be a chess player like Carlos Monzon.

What I'd like everyone to do, if they can be arsed, is list some fighters who you really believe were stuck on ultra advanced. Could be a top five, top ten, or even just one, but if you can, please explain in detail.

I'll start off with my next post.

 

It's no surprise that Jose Napoles is my choice. At the moment he's standing out above anybody.

I wouldn't say Napoles was particularly gifted physically for an all-time great aside from possessing good stamina and an iron jaw, perhaps because he had no choice but to fill welterweight shoes to achieve glory, and this is what makes his endeavours all the more astonishing, especially in the last few years of his career where he was apparently uninspiring in the gym and an ageing, borderline alcoholic, or maybe even a full blown one.

His skills saw him through.

I only realised it recently, but the man never blocks punches. All head movement and the odd parry. Ducking, slipping, leaning back from punches - not too far though as wasted movement was unnecessary. Can you imagine the amount of confidence that requires? I'm not going to pretend he was unhittable because at times he clearly was (more, however, as each year passed), but probably not as much as we think. Napoles is right up there in the rankings for head movement - he was defensively very slick. His opponents threw a lot of punches trying to hit him and they usually weren't very successful, particularly as they'd be getting hit in return.

Jose Napoles reminds me of Henry Armstrong or Joe Frazier at times but in counter punching form. When he stalks an opponent he can look very similar, just more measured, and of course his long range boxing skills surpassed nearly anyone's. That's a fairly short man as well, about five feet seven inches, maybe another half an inch. His arms weren't extraordinarily long. But Napoles could out box nearly anybody.

Was it the footwork? It was highly educated and practised, definitely, as on film you can see knee dipping, feinting and the cutting down of the ring on assault. Un-noticeable, manipulative steps and shuffles. Napoles pounced upon wounded opponents with haste and moved in all directions. Until he really slowed down, and even then, you'd rarely catch him against the ropes or in the corner unless it was him doing the attacking - he was great at holding centre stage and pacing mid-ring.

And beatifully paced he was. Napoles was a true late rounds fighter, having stopped numerous opponents late or won fifteen round decisions over them. And I don't think this was down to any slow heartbeat or maniacal roadwork; just relaxed, thoughtful fighting.

I don't think he was too relaxed either, as is the criticism of some other laid back fighters, as he demonstrated easy access to sudden counter combinations to put his opponent in trouble, which I have to say, were exquisite. The further back in his career you go, the more frequent and ferocious the combinations become.

It really must have been a terror to fight Napoles, because aside from the fact his feinting could tie knots, his competition must have been fearful that every time they threw a punch there would be a focused effort to hit them during or immediately after it. And counter punchers are hard to fight when they hit back singularly, let alone when there are combinations thrown into the mix with a blinding jab.

It's not like it was easy getting inside either because Napoles was also proficient at throwing uppercuts and again, often delivered them in combination. Like holding the middle of the ring, Napoles was also good at keeping an attacker no closer than middle range where he could inflict most damage.

Napoles, to me, seemed an opportunistic fighter with a high level of ingrained professionalism. What I mean by that is, he was methodical and organised in his ways, but went about it in a way that was dangerous and instinctive with the searching for targets and volleys of punches. Pretty much, you could probably run away from him all night and remain rather safe, but you wouldn't be scoring many points. Unapproachable, because you'd get eaten up if you tried to attack and outscored if you tried to play boxing.

I wouldn't say Napoles possessed a wider variety of techniques than say, Marvin Hagler, who seemed to be able to do everything well, but he had a complete arsenal of punches and was so specialised and honed at what he did, he was near enough unbeatable at 140lbs from what I can tell.

I'm watching footage as I'm writing and it's at times like these I wish I could make some .gifs to put on here. I've said before that Roberto Duran was the one who raised the bar on skill level, but some of the quick moves Napoles makes, I couldn't imagine even Duran pulling them off with the same consistency.

 

Okay I get it, too much Napoles. Has anyone else got a fighter in mind?

 

Well spotted, you're right. His right was a reserve hand but not necessarily any less effective. Right leads often caught people out, probably because they had all eyes on the left like you said, and of course it served as a more than reliable equaliser in those flurries.

McCallum and Gavilan (SS) are interesting choices.