Best defensive fighters NOT named Whitaker, Pep, Locche, Mayweather

[billeau2]

We need to be able to distinguish what we mean by defence. Is it purely not getting hit? Because Roy Jones and Young Ali were pretty good at that or is it being able to avoid shots while setting up your own attacks that can KO your opponents like Toney or like Mayweather who can stay out of range pot shot his way to victory, get on his bike or be in the shell picking of his opponents with cute shots but not doing much damage.

good point. Just like the thread where we had to decide what a counter punch really is...To scratch the surface one might ask: which defnsive fighters win fights with their defnsive tactics versus fighters who can avoid getting hit but need to generate offensively to be succesful.

For example Tunney was great defensively but beat you with a constant rapier like attack of combos, but Toney sets up his right with his defensive tactics.

[joseph5620]

We need to be able to distinguish what we mean by defence. Is it purely not getting hit? Because Roy Jones and Young Ali were pretty good at that or is it being able to avoid shots while setting up your own attacks that can KO your opponents like Toney or like Mayweather who can stay out of range pot shot his way to victory, get on his bike or be in the shell picking of his opponents with cute shots but not doing much damage.

For me it's avoiding punches that are thrown at the fighter. The style in which it's done doesn't matter to me. Although some will only credit " technical" defense.

I don't see it that way.

[H.B.Viper]

The art of slipping a punch!

Benitez, Toney, Sweet Pea comes to mind.
Swift a foot, would be the GOAT, Tyrone Crawley, Howard Davis.
Blocking mitts with a glove, Ken Norton, & Larry Holmes...
Just outright slick, make you look foolish?
Benitez, Toney, Robinson, JJ, Sweet Pea, Pep, Jimmy Young, Chris Byrd, Camacho, Mayweather Jr..

[billeau2]

Benitez, Toney, Sweet Pea comes to mind.
Swift a foot, would be the GOAT, Tyrone Crawley, Howard Davis.
Blocking mitts with a glove, Ken Norton, & Larry Holmes...
Just outright slick, make you look foolish?
Benitez, Toney, Robinson, JJ, Sweet Pea, Pep, Jimmy Young, Chris Byrd, Camacho, Mayweather Jr..

Kudos! Byrd and Young I think most would agree deserve mention.

[Ringlife]

Winky Wright defense use to frustrate his opponents, also Bernard Hopkins had pretty good defense never really seen him get hit to clean, until he fought Kovalev.... but the guy is 49 years old.

[-PBP-]

I don' t know about greatest but Dwight Muhammad Quawi deserves a mention.

[Anthony342]

Winky Wright defense use to frustrate his opponents, also Bernard Hopkins had pretty good defense never really seen him get hit to clean, until he fought Kovalev.... but the guy is 49 years old.

Yeah he was in that fight. Just turned 50 yesterday, I heard.

[scartissue]

Eddie Perkins
Ralph Dupas
Herol Graham

[The Old LefHook]

The missing honoree here is Jimmy Young. He was a genius defender of the first rank. I know danged well he was better than Winky Wright at defending, whose big talent was to cover face and body with his long arms and walk toward the opponent with the footwork of Frankenstein's monster. If you decided to throw a punch, then Rip Van Winky might decide to throw one, too. Arguably the most boring fighter in history to watch, but a gauranteed nap at least.

Young was always fighting bigger men, some of the most dangerous punchers ever. Wright fought men who were always noticably smaller, until he started getting his butt whipped by guys more his own real size. Wright was pretty good, but I will again go so far as to say he might belong on some lists, but not this one IMO. He belongs on the list of those we hope to forget as soon as possible.

[The Old LefHook]

For some fighters defense is primarily the ability of fast legs to stay on the outside so that fast hands can beat the opponent to the punch.

That would be Howard Davis who, though arguably possesing the fastest pair of mitts to ever answer a bell, was perhaps not a great defender anywhere except in the outfield. I really have to review, though, to be sure that he could not twist and turn on the inside as well. It has been a while.

But I know Howard is in the fastest mitts contest. Lacking a punch and short on chin, he was a brief flare across the firmament, but no one was faster or ever will be, I remember thinking long ago.