Who is the greatest 'Ring General' of all time?

[billeau2]

To me one of the very best ring generals (so to speak) is James Toney. Especially older James Toney. In the Nunn fight Toney took on a strategy of making Nunn work at a faster pace enabling him to come on strong late, with hasim Rahman he was able to dictate the distance and exchanges, using the shoulder roll to make Rahman skittish about committing.

In Toney's worse loss he faced a fighter who could not be contained and it was a disaster (Roy Jones). To me this fight shows the limits of what an excellent ring general can do: Liston was another with excellent skills of imposing his will on the other guy....And Ali also showed how fast a good general can be taken apart when the fight can not be controlled.

Both Liston and Toney were excellent punchers with great skill sets to depend upon...But neither guy was very good when they could not maintain control of the pace, action, tactics used in the fight.

It is said that some of the best generals in history were hannibal, Alexander the Great, Romel, Robert E Lee, etc... Alexander the great started on this path when he was able to develop the phalanax formation to defeat the great hittite Chariot armies....The chariots could overun the enemy, but when an arrow formation was developed and aimed at the space between them....the chariots became vulnerable...Alexander conquered worlds based on this development.

Great generals use tactics and tricks....they integrate them, impose themselves psychologically and use adversity to their advantage. Were the Mongol's great generals? no, they were just great fighters with technology (compound bowe, horses) and resouceful.....

I just thought an apt analogy would be useful. Another great general would be Max Smelling, he fond a way to control Louis, a fighter with much more resources to draw upon. Thats ring generalship at work...find a weakness (Louis' right, The space between the Hittite chariots) and expliote it, use it to control the opposition.

[soul_survivor]

Ali needs to be mentioned here. He could control the pace of a fight like nobody else and in his prime, he literally stood centre ring and made guys miss, allowing them to become disheartened and then ending the fights on his own terms. In fact he was so good, he predicted a large number of his title fights and how and when they would end. Name me one other fighter who did that?

Would throw SRLs name in the ring too, he was exceptional at times, judging distance, knowing when to strike and when to sit back. Far better than some of the names I've seen mentioned here.

[billeau2]

Ali needs to be mentioned here. He could control the pace of a fight like nobody else and in his prime, he literally stood centre ring and made guys miss, allowing them to become disheartened and then ending the fights on his own terms. In fact he was so good, he predicted a large number of his title fights and how and when they would end. Name me one other fighter who did that?

Would throw SRLs name in the ring too, he was exceptional at times, judging distance, knowing when to strike and when to sit back. Far better than some of the names I've seen mentioned here.

Ali was no less great than you say but I view him more of a reactive adaptive fighter (Dwyer's term) than a general....Not that one is better than the other.

[Mintcar923]

Ali was no less great than you say but I view him more of a reactive adaptive fighter (Dwyer's term) than a general....Not that one is better than the other.

So you are saying Ali wouldn't go in with a set game plan but just reacted and adapted? I'd figure a general would come in confident of what he was gonna do and employ it on the opponent..

[The Old LefHook]

Several have pointed out that there are a lot of facets to "generaling," and I pointed out how the Venn diagram captures their relationship and the large amount of territory they share. But Venn diagrams are not murky. They represent caculable amounts of shared and unshared territory. For us the borders are vague.

Of this or that we may ask, does it belong to clever boxing or does it belong to generaling? Any answer is nebulous. Generaling is a thinking man's game, but clever boxers use their brains all the time too. Following, nearly in order of importance, is a list of the most generalized attributes expected of a great ring general.

(1.) Controls space and time
(2.) Able to change tactics or even Strategy mid fight
(3.) Keeps overview of crowd and judges
(4.) Never comes to lose
(5.) Makes necessary sacrifices

[Anthony342]

Good list. Controls space and time made me think of some kind of sci-fi character with superpowers able to time travel through wormholes in space haha.

[The Old LefHook]

Good list. Controls space and time made me think of some kind of sci-fi character with superpowers able to time travel through wormholes in space haha.

Creative control of the entire space of the ring. Use of ropes and corners. Fast generals control time, but good attackers and swarmers can seize it back.

Time and again fighters are not able to make minor adjutments that would win them the fight. Most cannot make small adjustments, let alone change tactics, let alone change their whole strategy to another fight plan.

[billeau2]

So you are saying Ali wouldn't go in with a set game plan but just reacted and adapted? I'd figure a general would come in confident of what he was gonna do and employ it on the opponent..

Its not necessarily that guys don't have a plan. Its just that some guys have many resources all aimed at controlling the fight, like a general controls real estate. Other guys just react well in the ring, improvise well, don't necessarily need a blueprint.

here are some analogies...You have two cooking shows...they both do a version of corn bread: cook number one, we will call him Alton Brown (a real tv cook) measures all ingrediants precisely, makes sure the oven is the precise temperature, buys a particular grade of corn meal and inflects the meal with a certain species of corn known for its sweetness....Cook number two, goes to an old corn mill and then to a farm where the buttermilk has been milked, separated that day, throws it together til it gets the right consistency...might on a lark add some fresh queso cheese, and a few peppers just to keep it real....Both corn breads could be great, just made with a different culinary architecture....Or...the concert pianist who has incredible technical ability and a photographic memory, versus a jazz pianist who cannot even read sheet music but plays beautifully.

Frank Sinatra was a technical marvel. he sang in tone all the time, perfect pitch, perfect spacing...Stevie Wonder sings out of key, has ******ed spacing in his pauses...and also sounds beautiful.

[ShoulderRoll]

Great generals use tactics and tricks....they integrate them, impose themselves psychologically and use adversity to their advantage. Were the Mongol's great generals? no, they were just great fighters with technology (compound bowe, horses) and resouceful.....

Off topic but:

The Mongols actually had very good tacticians and generals. Subutai in particular might be the greatest general in history.

Also, they did not use compound bows which are a modern invention.

[billeau2]

Off topic but:

The Mongols actually had very good tacticians and generals. Subutai in particular might be the greatest general in history.

Also, they did not use compound bows which are a modern invention.

They used a smaller bow which was made with more than one bow piece? no? I didn't mean compound as the name of the modern equipment you speak of I meant literally a bow made from more than one piece of wood, with a joint, as opposed to a large Bow made from one piece of wood.

The Mongols needed very little tactics. As a matter of fact when they couldn't swarm, leave horses behind for a rest, and go on, they could be beat. it happened to them twice via the Samurai. They could not adapt when a storm approached and they could not swarm. There were no secondary tactics, no naval tricks to pull.

What the mongols did have was tactics that were unmatched vis a vis the ability to swarm the enemy and the practice of using these tactics and integrating these tactics into their lives so they were second nature...Nobody ever really gave them any chance to battle outside their own ranks! They were defeated by being gradually acculterated into the cultures they conquered most notably the chinese, who actually had a mongol empror.

I wouldn't dispute that they may have had a great general....But The Kahns own sons couldn't maintain the ways that made them so powerful which was the ability to have the speed (horses) skills to ride, and weapons to outflank and overrun anyone in their way.