Your fifteen most talented fighters of the past thirty years...

Hut you underrate Calzaghe and overrate Hopkins, which is an annoying trend these days. I don't mind anyone saying Hopkins had a better overall career, but when they make out he blows Calzaghe out of the water talent and resume wise, it is a little ridiculous.

Anyway I nominate Kirkland Laing for a great talent which was never fulfilled.

 

about as talented as Zab Judah. No more. His chin sucked.

 

I'd be careful on that one... Steve Frank is pretty f'n terrible. Granted, he was a last minute replacement, and not a planned defense like McIntyre.

Morrade Hakkar, however, was a scheduled fight.

 

::

 

The same "old man" that Beat the crap out of Pavlik 6 months later and took the current LHW champ to a draw? Man he seems pretty feeble.

 

hakkar wouldve beat the shit out of mcIntyre.

 

Why does Lennox Lewis not have a playstation?

Because he's an x-boxer...

 

As far the Calzaghe-Hopkins debate goes...

I'm fine with both being on anyone's list. But anyone who sells short Hopkins' talent clearly missed out on his prime years in the late '90's. He was honestly pretty damn close to the textbook definition of a boxer-puncher and at the time one of my favorite fighters to watch.

 

Hut is an intelligent, interesting guy, but his hatred of Calzaghe knows no bounds.

MTF

 

even at the age of 45 or 46, hopkins is still pretty damn fast and elusive.

 

But he numbered them.:scratcher:

 

I don't hate Calzaghe per se. I just just hate his career path and how out hustling a 42 year old by being fitter and dancing with the corpse of Roy Jones like fucking Leset in Interview with the Vampire somehow bought his percieved greatness. It's one of these things everyone thinks they're two smart to have fallen for but it achieved exactly the cynical purpose he intended it to. PR works.

Calzaghe's an outstanding champion. But the management of his career irks me and I think he's overrrated on the back of it. And I don't think he's great. Just excellent. Hatton's wins over Tszyu and Castillo are as good as anything Calzaghe achieved.

 

Yes but he can't sustain a fast pace or deal with a consistent, high pressure attack. Which happens to be what Calzaghe brought.

 

1. Peter Buckley
2. Ricardo Mayorga
3. Luis Santana
4. Jose "Pipino" Cuevas
5. Yasutsune Uehara
6. Jorge "Maromero" Paez
7. John Ruiz
8. Andrew Golota
9. Carlos Maussa
10. Marcos Maidana
11. Julius Francis
12. Morrade Hakkar
13. Carl Weaver
14. Eduardo Gutierrez
15. Agapito Sanchez

 

Yeesh, no love for Julian Jackson. He was the hardest puncher p4p ever.

Ok, in no particular order:

1. Pernell Whitaker
2. RJJ
3. SRL
4. Hearns
5. Ricardo Lopez
6. Mike McCallum
7. Salvador Sanchez
8. Mike Tyson
9. Felix Trinidad
10. Meldrick Taylor
11. Hagler
12. Floyd Mayweather Jr
13. Terry Norris
14. Prince Naseem Hamed (talented, not most skilled)
15. Julian Jackson

 

Talent was the last of Trinidad's attributes.

 

Yeah, but is pure punching power really a talent? He boasted an uncanny ability to KTFO nearly anyone he wanted at any given time, but could also lose every second of the fight to that point.

 

Actually what Tito got by on was his talent.

His two handed power, stamina, and his will were the things that best served him. Along with his size and range.

His boxing SKILLS now weren't the greatest. On offense he was fantastic. He could throw every punch in the book with accuracy and power, and was very good with combinations of punches.

Defensively though, is where he lacked. Didn't move his head much, little if any upper body movement, slow on his feet, didn't use angles, etc.

 

Precisely. I tried to ignore the earlier comment, because any claim that Tito lacked talent simply ignores what he boasted while on the way up.

His flaws were exposed in the DLH fight (though so were Oscar's, for that matter), but it didn't change what got him to that point, and also his dominance afterward (at least until he ran into Hopkins).

 

Heart, endurance & a big left hook were Trinidad's three significant qualities. Two of these aren't talent.

 

He had to develop it. :dunno:

It was only post-McClellan that he was totally shot and losing every second of the fight against guys like Agostino Cardamone. You also have to factor in that he had retina issues as the result of getting nailed in the eye with a linedrive when he was playing baseball.

That's why he looked so crappy against Herol Graham until the KO punch. He was missing punches by more than half a foot until that happened.

I'd argue that Jackson was a great offensive talent---defense not so much.

 

He could throw any punch in the book with serious power and pintpoint accuracy to the body or head. Sounds like talent to me. His footwork was pedestrian, but his fast, fluid combinations were indicative of a talented boxer to me.

You don't become a world champion at age 20 and leave Maurice Blocker facefirst on the canvas if you are not talented. Tito was quite talented, but his footwork was rather pedestrian.

 

There's no useful line to be drawn between talent and ability/quality. Im gonna keep repeating this until you all get annoyed, sorry.::

 

Well heart you either have or you don't so I agree there.

Endurance however is a bit different because when a fighter gets tired in the ring, there are many factors involved, and its not always conditioning. At the level that Trinidad competed at, I doubt he trained much harder than any of the likes of De La Hoya, Vargas, Joppy, Reid, etc... But he had more endurance than any of those guys.... Why??... Because everyone is different. One thing Tito never did is fade late. Was it really because he trained that much harder???... I doubt it. Its a gift. Some people just have more endurance than others no matter how hard they train or whatever.

Trinidad's left hook wasn't just BIG... More than anything, it was the DELIVERY of the punch that made it and all his other punches so devastating. Tito's hook was short, compact, accurate, and had precise timing. Now of course, training a guy can and will improve his ability to deliver a punch. But I tell ya, I watch guys in the gym every day try to do the same thing others do and they cannot do it. And they have alot of experience. Its very difficult to deliver a punch with perfect technique, timing, leverage, and max power on it. Punchers are born. Not made.

 

I wouldn't say that at all. For the purposes of this debate, let's assume he didn't have loaded gloves in any of his fights prior to the Hopkins fight (for me, granted, it's a big leap, but necessary to focus on strictly what we can see).

The manner in which Trinidad put punches together, and altered his punches in consideration of space, achieved maximum leverage on punches, slipped his left-hook to the body effortlessly and with minimal movement...the guy clearly had natural gifts.

Watch in the Vargas fight - it was the 3rd or 4th round when he hurts Vargas with a body-shot and Vargas is clinching his teeth, trying not to show he is hurt, next see Trinidad throw an upper-cut, lifting Vargas' head up, followed by a perfectly placed chopping right-hand angled downward.

His fights often looked choreographed because everything he did seemed to be perfectly timed and perfectly placed.

Merchant said it best when Trinidad was beating the shit out of Whitaker,
"Trinidad throws beautifully conceived punches."

He was referring to Trinidad's countering, feinting with either hand and then throwing the other.

One of the secrets I think to Trinidad's great success against Whitaker is that using his forearm, he simply would not allow Whitaker to get inside and tie up the way he likes to - dirty boxing. Trinidad would not stand for it. And consequently, it was what it should've been - a boxing match. And Trinidad won it convincingly. I recognize Whitaker was past his prime, but there's still something to be said for the dominance with which Trinidad defeated Whitaker.

Watch Trinidad's left-hook, upper-cut combination that had Thiam reeling (again we have to assume for the moment his gloves were not loaded). This was a beautiful, mesmerizing combination.

Trinidad at 160 and above was not the Trinidad I'm talking about. He was too damn slow there, he didn't carry his power there, and he seemed to have stamina issues.

 

I'm absolutely BAFFLED that I'm the ONLY one who mentioned Mike Spinks.

 

I think Tito DID carry his power to 160 in fact.

But he was not as sharp nor as quick.

Hard to tell with the stamina because he wasn't KO'd by Hopkins because of exhaustion moreso than he just got a beat down in that fight. And against Joppy, Mayorga, and Cherifi, he wasn't exactly tested well. Against Winky he was just outboxed and shut down but I can't say I saw a stamina problem there.

 

You are talking about punching technique, which is a skill, not a talent.

 

Countering, feinting, combinations --- these are skills, not talents.

 

I didn't call Trinidad untalented, though. I said it was secondary to other elements in his game.

I could not call him one of the top-15 most talented fighters of the last ten years, let alone thirty.