name the fastest fighters in the traditional weight classes

[soul_survivor]

i always have a problem answering this because pure quickness and the exact measure of when a punch lands from start to finish are, ina sense two different qualities.

Great technique arrives because of efficiency. So floyd mayweather's punch may arrive at the same time that zab judah's does, but...judah gets there because of pure speed and mayweather because of mechanics.

I will say that some of the fastest guys i have seen are judah, andy ruiz, whitaker, roy jones, camacho....and many more.

yes....i wanted to mention guys not already mentioned, i.e. Obviously ali was incredibly fast and quick....ruiz has extremely fast hands. Actually so does telefio stephenson.

looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

[SCtrojansbaby]

Fly - ????
Bantam - Tim Austin
Feather - Gamboa(for total speed. Pacquiao and others have faster hands)
Light - Camacho
Welter - This one is tough all the fastest guys come from lower weights
Middle - RJJ
Light Heavy - RJJ
Heavy - Ali

[billeau2]

a lot of you have mentioned Camacho (does my heart good). Any opinions on prince Naseem? I never watched enough of his fights, I always got the sense he was aping Camacho actually....

[New England]

a lot of you have mentioned Camacho (does my heart good). Any opinions on prince Naseem? I never watched enough of his fights, I always got the sense he was aping Camacho actually....

i wouldn't call hamed a deviant speedster as much as i'd call him a deviant powerpuncher. he hit like a much, much bigger man. his speed was more appropriate for the weight.

[New England]

Yes....I wanted to mention guys not already mentioned, i.e. obviously Ali was incredibly fast and quick....Ruiz has extremely fast hands. Actually so does Telefio Stephenson.

he's got fast hands, but i think they're made to look more spectacularly fast by the crap opponents, and the fact that he's giggling all over the place. you just don't expect him to throw combinations with speed when he looks like that.


i wouldn't say he's that fast, though. he's also a bit of an arm puncher by the look of things.


i haven't gone through that much of his tape (four fights or so on youtube, and obviously the hammer fight.) evidently he was around 3 bills when he debuted

[SBleeder]

Patterson might be a match for Ali at heavyweight.

[Sugarj]

Patterson might be a match for Ali at heavyweight.

In terms of sheer hand speed I'm sure that he was found to have a faster left. Its a very close call on the combination front too.

[Scott9945]

In terms of sheer hand speed I'm sure that he was found to have a faster left. Its a very close call on the combination front too.

Patterson was certainly a fast handed heavyweight, but, imo, his handspeed doesn't compare with Clay/Ali on the 1960's. And that is no slight to Patterson. Nobody comes even close.

[DondiNeverLeft]

The fastest fighters in terms punching that I ever saw is Meldrick Taylor, Hector Camacho, Ali, Leonard, Roy, Pac.

That's my list too

[greeh]

It depends what you mean by fastest. Do you mean speed of foot or hand, or the two combined?

Anyway… I will give it a go with fighters that haven’t been mentioned yet:

112 - Jung-Koo Chang, Chan-Hee Park, Hiroyuki Ebihara
118 - Takao Sakurai, Lionel Rose, Miguel Lora, Fighting Harada
126 - Jose Legra, Ernesto Marcel
135 - Roberto Duran, Howard Davis Jr
147 - Donald Curry
160 - Ronnie Harris

Just to clarify in case anyone wonder - the reason I have Duran in is because of his excellent footspeed.