Top 10 Defensive Fighters?

I wouldn't put Hugo Corro over Charles in anything .

Rigo and Ward have a case for at least 20.

I think you could make a case for Starling in the top 20 as well.

 

Moore? Conteh? Marcel? Laguna?

I need answers, goddamn it!

I actually was considering Rigo in the top ten, but his ineffectiveness vs southpaws made me hesitate. Starling's defence is cool. Yeah, probably top twenty. I don't know if Ward would make it, though. I haven't made one - obviously - but I think I could probably spitball twenty guys with a better defence than Ward.

And yeah, I wouldn't either. I think he's likely got the best case in chin. Charles went down a lot, which I put down to him having Tito/JMM-syndrome, but others put down to a mediocre chin.

 

Both are inseparable imo.

 

Its not untrue. While he might have done it in a few moments in a fight or two against terrible opponents (paul fiji is as bad as ive seen anyone at the world level) ive seen enough of his fights to know it wasnt the norm for him.

And no amount of nonsense-revisionism will change this

 

Paul Fuji, one of the biggest punchers in the history of 140, was one of the worst fighters ever on world level? And Carmen Basilio wasn't all that?

You sure are on a roll today.

And even if I give you Fuji, he still schooled Hernandez, who was a junior welterweight great.

Stop talking out your ass.

 

I don't mind if he hit as hard as tyson, he was a total and utter bum. Slow, no defense and winging punches from the floor. He makes Wilder look like a prime Roy Jones

 

Fuji was a bum who was the unified junior welterweight champion at a time when that still meant something.

Keep talking...

And you still didnt address Hernandez. Was he a bum too?

 

Anybody with eyes and a modicum of boxing knowledge can see Fuji was a bum. A bum with toughness and a huge punch but a bum nontheless. If a guy with his skill levels was an unified champ now, you'd see a thousands of litanies stating that boxing is dead

Hernandez was decent, but calling him a 140 great is more than an overstatement

 

Carlos Hernandez was decent .

Jesus Christ... I can't deal with your absurdity tonight.

@Sweet Pea eloquently laid out a few months ago why Hernandez was a helluva lot more than decent, but whatever you say...

 

I have more trust it in my eyes more than anything anybody wrote on a forum. If you think that overrating all of the B fighters.of the 60-70 make you some kind of boxing connoisseur, be my guest. Only makes you look foolish imo

 

What do you think of Marciano? Was he a bum because his technique is shit? Was he a 'bum with toughness and a huge punch'? Fuji may not have been Pernell Whitaker, but wasn't a bum. He'd just absolutely fucking obliterated the unified champ, Lopopolo, who funnily enough won the title of Hernandez himself. Fuji was the number one ranked junior welterweight in the world when Locche beat him. There's a fighter at LHW reminiscent of Fuji right now. He's beloved, and next month he'll be champion.

Locche beat Eddie Perkins, Takeshi Fuji, Alfredo Urbina, LC Morgan, Sandro Lopopolo, Carlos Hernandez, Adolph Pruitt, Joe Brown and Antonio Cervantes. He also should've beaten Laguna.

He was clearly doing something right.

 

Fuji was much much cruder that Marciano, and im drawing a blank about the lhw fighter youre referring to .

Locche was a very good fighter, but hes massively overrated and protected



Edit: ive heard the laguna fight was a robbery but the other way around. Anyway, iirc, there is no footage of that fight, bar a few minutes

 

Fuji was cruder than Marciano, but that's not the point. The point is that technique isn't everything, especially when you can punch like Fuji did. But crude or not, he was ring rated as the best fighter in the world, in a division which was stacked as hell. A win like that deserves respect, especially with the way Locche won.

Joe Smith Jr.

Locche was protected, but the myth of by how much is extremely overgrown. He got the benefit of a few fights, but he was undoubtedly an extremely good fighter. His defence is on film. The Laguna decison I've seen could've gone either way; a draw was fair. I've seen more for Locche winning than Laguna, though. And I've looked, I really wanted to see if Laguna got that one.

I don't know how you can watch Locche and not see one of the best defensive fighters ever.

 

Joe Smith jr is beloved??

That's a new one for me.

Locche defense was great, but he was far too negative for me to rate him among the best ever. As I said before, he was mostly concentrating on D cause he knew judges were not scoring close rounds against him in Argentina.

Hell in the Hernandez fight, in which he was much more agressive than usual, he also got hit a lot more than in his other fights. That's why I'm more impressed by agressive fighters showing great D. It's much much harder to achieve.

 

It's hyperbole. He's nowhere near as berated as you're making out somebody like him would be.

Locche's defence was great. This is a thread about the greatest defences ever. It's no stretch to say that he got the benefit of one or two draws, but it's ludicrous to put down his entire success and career to it. Plenty of his wins were complete dominations. He didn't need hometown bias to beat the best ever, and even if he did, this is a thread about who had the best defence, not about which defensively-minded fighter was the least negative, or the best at being aggressive while maintaining defence. Locche being 'too negative' shouldn't change how he's ranked here, since that's a completely different argument. And even still, he wasn't too negative to beat all of the top names he did.

So do you not rate Whitaker or Mayweather highly either? They got hit way more when they opened up. That criticism can be applied to every single fighter in history.

 

As UGTBK said, you cant seperate the two, that's what you don't seem to understand. You've boxed from what i understood, so you should know this. Its rather easy to make a guy miss if you're not taking any risk. Was Gainer showing good defense against Marquez, since he barely got hit?


And anyway, youre attacking a point i never made. I never said Locche defense wasn't great, but i don't think it rate among the best ever, and especially not the best ever

 

Rj deserves a mention. Barely got hit at all in his prime

 

Great ones that have been mentioned. I will also add in Eddie Perkins, Ralph Dupas, pre-exile Ali and an underrated Marlon Starling (his peek-a-boo was water-tight).

 

You can separate the two, though. It's quite easy. When I'm in the ring, the better defensive fighter is the fighter I can't hit as often. Whether that's because they're not engaging, or they're brilliant with their movement. The one I had the most trouble hitting is the best defensive fighter. Which is what Locche did.

And that's different. Locche has layers and layers of defensive techniques. And he's normally in with fighters who throw a little more than three punches a round.

I'm not attacking the point that you think it isn't great. I'm attacking the idea that he isn't one of the best ever. Not number one? Fair enough, but not even top ten? Why?

 

Well, we'll have to disagree on this one cause I dn't think it makes sense to seprate the two, and it seems neither of us will move of their position

 

Never been a pro or amateur, but I have taken lessons and sparred, and can tell you that even in fighting negatively, it takes skill to make a guy miss with punches. And these are punches from fellow non-pros.

It requires high skill to make a professional boxer miss in any capacity. On the level Locche did, WHILE (for the last damn time) countering in-between? Forget it, it takes insane defensive skill and technique.

 

I've boxed for about four years, and did kickboxing for seven years before that. I had an amateur fight in 2018, and have wanted to have others since but the three I've been told there were dates for ended up fucked by a sprained ankle, a brokem wrist or global pandemic.

More than two thirds of my life have been spent doing martial arts

 

Again he didn't do much countering in a lot of his fight, and in the the Hernandez fight, while he did threw many counter, it was a rather close fight and got hit a lot.

Anyway, as i said before, no point in discussing this any further

 

No excuses. Call out every titlist in boxing and demand a title shot.

 

When I go pro, you'll see how much of a snarky little fuck I can be.

 

If i was a fighter i would call people out that were multiple classes away and demand they meet at a "catch weight". For example if i was middleweight i would tell Tyson Fury to make a reasonable compromise and fight me at 163 1/2 or out yourself as a coward.

 

You should challenge Zelenoff and post the fight here. We need that!

 

I agree defense can be meaningfully assessed in isolation and independent of offense. And official scoring criteria provided to judges, which explicitly includes the element of defense, would seem to confirm this.

I think what trips us up is the extreme cases like Gainer or even a latter day Camacho, where it's clear they're not even trying to win and are focused solely on not getting hit. These are legitimate displays of defensive skill but hardly something we're inclined to celebrate. So on the other hand, for defense to truly be worthy of admiration, I think it can't be at the expense of a viable offensive effort. My guess is this is why even though defense is listed as a criteria of success, they explicitly say, with an ephasis on clean and effective punching.

 

I love watching Billy Graham work, though he was just an exceptional Boxer in all fields than purely defensive. A 'general' rather than a 'scout'. I like watching Kawashima too, but he doesn't come near a top 10. Samart had the potential for this if his prime was in Boxing instead of Muay Thai. I would actually include Duran, but this thread is 'pure' defense, so he is discounted, as is Chavez etc. Depending on your logic, you could even mention guys like Johnny Nelson *shudder*.

 

Only I decided not to include fighters who's styles were more aggresive/in the pocket (which is a decision in questioning). It feels weird saying that Lionel Rose's defence was better than Toney's or Duran's.