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The 10 Funkiest Fighters In Boxing Today
By Tim Starks
Saturday night offered us two of boxing's most unusual stylists against one another in the middleweight Paul Williams-Winky Wright bout. Whether you like both, one or neither, you gotta admit they do their own thing. They are originals.
That, plus my visit last week to the early career of another original, James Toney, got me to thinking about the strangest boxers roaming the ring these days. I don't mean personality-wise. That would have to be a whole 'nother column, although the weekend also gave us a glimpse of that category, with junior welterweight DeMarcus Corley's "Predator" head/women's underwear schtick. I mean, guys who bring something to the ring that's rare, be it their physical dimensions, their unconventional methods or some combination thereof.
I searched my memory banks and the divisional top-10 rankings and this is who I came up with. Please offer your own submissions. If there's somebody funky out there I haven't seen before, I'll want to catch them as soon as I can.
1. Emanuel Augustus
Until "The Drunken Master" retires, he will always be the biggest in-ring freakazoid. Judging by his last performance, a loss on the scorecards against junior welterweight Francisco Figueroa that many thought he won, the beat goes on. No one but Augustus would try to launch a punch with both fists at the same time as he does in the video below. He also does a bunch of other bat-**** insane things in there, looking literally like he's drunk.
And a second helping of Augustus doing his dance steps; watch how, at one point, a member of the crowd in the background gets up and dances, too.
2. Vic Darchinyan
Vic has settled down and gotten a little technical, but he still fights in spurts like a crab. In his last fight against junior bantamweight rival Jorge Arce, he at one point held both arms straight out with his arms angled straight down at the elbow, as he stalked forward. He is Crab People. Watch at about 1:30 for his crabbiest style in this clip.
3. Paul Williams
A good 6'3", with an 82" reach that exceeds that of 6'7" heavyweight Vitali Klitschko, Williams' awkwardness starts with his gangly frame that he boiled down one year ago into welterweight. But the left-handedness, the awkwardness, and, especially, the punches that come 100 per round and from cartoonish angles, are pure components of his funkadelic status. Referee Joe Cortez warned him in the last fight because Williams' arm was tied up, and Williams took the opportunity to punch under and around said arm. It's not an infraction, but because no one does it, Cortez was confused.
4. Celestino Caballero
Caballero is the mini-me version of Williams, such as it is. He's 5'11", and he fights at 122 pounds. He's awkward, too, but doesn't throw as many punches as Williams. Mostly, he just resembles a gigantic praying mantis.
5. Nicolay Valuev
Valuev has his own funkdafied proportions. He's the biggest heavyweight titlist ever, at 7' and weighing as much as 348 pounds. He has a tremendous noggin and, sometimes, copious amounts of back hair, adding an air of "circus sideshow" to him. Counter-intuitively, he is more nimble than a man of his size should be and doesn't hit terribly hard.
6. Librado Andrade
Because his hands reportedly go numb when he blocks punches with his gloves, Andrade, a super middleweight, usually doesn't block them. He either takes them full flush on his face or rolls with the shots. Fortunately for him, he can take a hell of a shot, and unfortunately for his opponents, his Terminator routine usually wears his opponents down eventually.
7. Winky Wright
Wright's game plan is simple: A. Walk forward and catch all his his opponents' punches on his high guard, which has been called a "turtle shell" or "peek-a-boo" defense. B. Jab the living piss out of said opponents. He has mixed it up more in recent years, throwing a greater variety of punches and taking more chances, and Eddie Chambers at heavyweight has mimicked Wright, so he's less unusual than he once was, but he's still a trailblazer.
8. Sam Soliman
It's been said before of Soliman, a super middleweight, that even he doesn't know what he's going to do before he does it. I believe it. He threw about 1,250 punches in the fight below and missed all but 250.
9. Jose Armando Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz is the octopus to Darchinyan's crab. The lightweight wades in with hunched up shoulders and arms coiled in close, then throws punches from all angles that make him resemble a cephalopod. In the clip below, he starts upping his octo***** output around the final minute of the first round.
10. James Toney
Toney makes the list despite how terrible he looked in his last fight against Fres Oquendo, because in his prior fight against Hasim Rahman, he looked a little like the heavyweight Toney of old. That is, with a giant belly. And doing that shoulder roll thing. And laying on the ropes counterpunching.
Thought about including: Sakio Bika, Ivan Calderon, Eddie Chambers, Juan Diaz, Billy Dib, Ali Funeka, Paulie Malignaggi
By Tim Starks
Saturday night offered us two of boxing's most unusual stylists against one another in the middleweight Paul Williams-Winky Wright bout. Whether you like both, one or neither, you gotta admit they do their own thing. They are originals.
That, plus my visit last week to the early career of another original, James Toney, got me to thinking about the strangest boxers roaming the ring these days. I don't mean personality-wise. That would have to be a whole 'nother column, although the weekend also gave us a glimpse of that category, with junior welterweight DeMarcus Corley's "Predator" head/women's underwear schtick. I mean, guys who bring something to the ring that's rare, be it their physical dimensions, their unconventional methods or some combination thereof.
I searched my memory banks and the divisional top-10 rankings and this is who I came up with. Please offer your own submissions. If there's somebody funky out there I haven't seen before, I'll want to catch them as soon as I can.
1. Emanuel Augustus
Until "The Drunken Master" retires, he will always be the biggest in-ring freakazoid. Judging by his last performance, a loss on the scorecards against junior welterweight Francisco Figueroa that many thought he won, the beat goes on. No one but Augustus would try to launch a punch with both fists at the same time as he does in the video below. He also does a bunch of other bat-**** insane things in there, looking literally like he's drunk.
And a second helping of Augustus doing his dance steps; watch how, at one point, a member of the crowd in the background gets up and dances, too.
2. Vic Darchinyan
Vic has settled down and gotten a little technical, but he still fights in spurts like a crab. In his last fight against junior bantamweight rival Jorge Arce, he at one point held both arms straight out with his arms angled straight down at the elbow, as he stalked forward. He is Crab People. Watch at about 1:30 for his crabbiest style in this clip.
3. Paul Williams
A good 6'3", with an 82" reach that exceeds that of 6'7" heavyweight Vitali Klitschko, Williams' awkwardness starts with his gangly frame that he boiled down one year ago into welterweight. But the left-handedness, the awkwardness, and, especially, the punches that come 100 per round and from cartoonish angles, are pure components of his funkadelic status. Referee Joe Cortez warned him in the last fight because Williams' arm was tied up, and Williams took the opportunity to punch under and around said arm. It's not an infraction, but because no one does it, Cortez was confused.
4. Celestino Caballero
Caballero is the mini-me version of Williams, such as it is. He's 5'11", and he fights at 122 pounds. He's awkward, too, but doesn't throw as many punches as Williams. Mostly, he just resembles a gigantic praying mantis.
5. Nicolay Valuev
Valuev has his own funkdafied proportions. He's the biggest heavyweight titlist ever, at 7' and weighing as much as 348 pounds. He has a tremendous noggin and, sometimes, copious amounts of back hair, adding an air of "circus sideshow" to him. Counter-intuitively, he is more nimble than a man of his size should be and doesn't hit terribly hard.
6. Librado Andrade
Because his hands reportedly go numb when he blocks punches with his gloves, Andrade, a super middleweight, usually doesn't block them. He either takes them full flush on his face or rolls with the shots. Fortunately for him, he can take a hell of a shot, and unfortunately for his opponents, his Terminator routine usually wears his opponents down eventually.
7. Winky Wright
Wright's game plan is simple: A. Walk forward and catch all his his opponents' punches on his high guard, which has been called a "turtle shell" or "peek-a-boo" defense. B. Jab the living piss out of said opponents. He has mixed it up more in recent years, throwing a greater variety of punches and taking more chances, and Eddie Chambers at heavyweight has mimicked Wright, so he's less unusual than he once was, but he's still a trailblazer.
8. Sam Soliman
It's been said before of Soliman, a super middleweight, that even he doesn't know what he's going to do before he does it. I believe it. He threw about 1,250 punches in the fight below and missed all but 250.
9. Jose Armando Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz is the octopus to Darchinyan's crab. The lightweight wades in with hunched up shoulders and arms coiled in close, then throws punches from all angles that make him resemble a cephalopod. In the clip below, he starts upping his octo***** output around the final minute of the first round.
10. James Toney
Toney makes the list despite how terrible he looked in his last fight against Fres Oquendo, because in his prior fight against Hasim Rahman, he looked a little like the heavyweight Toney of old. That is, with a giant belly. And doing that shoulder roll thing. And laying on the ropes counterpunching.
Thought about including: Sakio Bika, Ivan Calderon, Eddie Chambers, Juan Diaz, Billy Dib, Ali Funeka, Paulie Malignaggi
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