Best I've faced! Boxers top ten they faced..

[RespekonMyName]

Great stuff.

[MRBOOMER]

Howard Davis jr.

Toughest fight: Larry Stanton/Norman Goins – I was very nervous, it was my first 10 rounder (vs. Stanton). We fought in an arena that had no air conditioning and after the first round I had nothing. I don't know how I went 10 rounds. I almost collapsed after the fight. I had nothing, and when I say I had nothing left, there's no way I could go another round. I felt like I was dying. I tried to KO him in the first round and he just kept coming for ten rounds. It was the most brutal fight for me, mentally. On top of that I had Bell's palsy. Only my father had known about it. That was painful in itself. I had to deal with that while fighting.

Then my second ten rounder, (was against) Norman Goins. He had a lot of knockouts and he had lost his last 7 fights but for some reason when he found out he was fighting me, he hired a new trainer, went to train in Florida and got in terrific shape. He knocked me down in the first and in the fifth. I knocked him down in the ninth and it should have been a knockout. The referee Jay Edson let it go 13 seconds. I came to him afterwards and said, “You let the fight go a little longer.” He admitted it, he said, “Yeah, but you had the fight.” I guess he wanted to see it through. I didn't realize it at the time but when I looked at the films, he stopped at (the count of) “8” when the guy got to his knees.

Best boxer: Vilomar Fernandez – One of the most technical fighters I ever fought. He was a consummate boxer, just came off a win over Alexis Arguello. It was an elimination fight to fight for the title. When you think of a slick, high intelligence boxer, that's what he was about. He was one of those guys who was very smart, very difficult to hit at times. He just had a very high IQ for boxing and I admire that. I fought his brother Jose Fernandez, too. I think it was my second or third fight."

Best Puncher: Tony Baltazar – I didn't know anything about him, not even his record. They just told me, “Today you're fighting this guy.” I usually make it easy for myself by not getting hit but at times I got hit by him and they were pretty powerful punches. If I wasn't sick, he wouldn't have hit me at all. I was so weak and ill, I don't know how I went ten rounds because two days before that I couldn't go two.”

Best Defense: Edwin Rosario – He was very difficult to hit the first three rounds. One of the things I had going for me was speed and once I find the range for my jab, it's over for them. I could not hit him with my jab in the beginning. When I started feinting, I started hitting him with it. Even with all the movements, he was still difficult to hit for me.

Smartest: Edwin Rosario – You could tell he studied me. He had all my moves. I had to go into my bag of tricks for him. Boxing is a game of chess. I would make a certain move that would be setting something up down the line. He knew I was setting him up for something later so when I made a move, he made a move to counteract it. I had to make 2-3 moves so I could get him into position.

For that fight, a lot people don't know that this was a short notice fight. I only trained I think two and a half three weeks. At the time I was contemplating retirement. I weighed 155 and I told my wife the same day that I found out that I think I'm going to retire and she was happy. As soon as I made that decision, my trainer pulled up at my house and said, “You got a title fight.” I said “No, I'm retired.” He said, “Well, here's the money.” So I said “OK we're out.”

Fastest hands: Hector Camacho – I think he had great timing and was great counter puncher. Not a hard puncher at all and I don't think he cared about punching hard. I caught him a couple of times, I bloodied his nose in the fourth and fifth rounds. He was very tricky but he couldn't do the things he wanted to do to me because I wouldn't let him hit me. But he won the fight, no doubt about it. He didn't shut me out. All the rounds were close in my opinion.

Best chin: Larry Stanton - I hit him with the kitchen sink. I'm not known to be a hard puncher, but I can punch hard when I set down and don't move so much. I never cared about knocking somebody out, my thing was being a mad scientist, taking it to the bunson burners and beakers.

Fastest feet: Hector Camacho – He knows how to avoid with his feet. He's not a guy who moves his head a lot, he avoids with his legs.

Strongest: Norman Goins – I was either 20 or 21, he was 27 or 28 and had his man strength. One of the strongest fighters I ever fought. I would have to say Baltazar also. I was sick but I could tell he was strong. He was very difficult to clinch.

Best jab: Edwin Rosario – I think the most I got hit by anyone's jab happened to be Edwin Rosario. It wasn't much, but I would say he hit me the most with the jab. If somebody hit me with a lot of jabs, it'd be very difficult for me to get my jab off. There were two reasons: he saw my jab, good fighters can figure out when you're going to throw a punch because they study your movements. You could tell he had studied my jab because every time I would throw it, he would either slip it or block it. He's a short guy and usually short guys don't jab, but his timing was good. Mike Tyson was another short guy who had a great jab, his timing was impeccable. Edwin Rosario's timing was very, very good.

[Ace R.]

Awesome thread. Thanks for sharing bro

[Pele..Rjj..23]

good thread

[Cleaver]

Thanks for sharing, great content


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[-jose-]

Good stuff in here!...thanks for sharing...

[SPREAD]

Best fighter: Mike McCallum -- That’s an easy choice, right off the top of my head it’s the Body Snatcher. He was the best fighter I fought at middleweight, super middleweight and cruiserweight. Out of all the fighters I fought, I respect him the most because he made me think about everything I tried to do. Before McCallum I was just runnin’ in on everyone, but he made me slow down and think for the first time.

Best Boxer: McCallum -- Yup, it’s him again. It’s between McCallum and Michael Nunn, but I gotta go with McCallum because he was a master boxer who wasn’t afraid to stand his ground. Nunn was mostly fast. I admit that he outboxed me for about nine rounds, but my body shots slowed him down. I told him during the fight ‘I’m gonna catch you!’ And I did.

Best puncher: Merqui Sosa -- Sam Peter is the hardest puncher I’ve fought, but pound-for-pound it’s Sosa because he hurt me the most. I’ll never forget that fight, we fought on an ESPN show in Atlantic City on a Sunday. I went at him like I did everyone back then and that mother f_____ hit me so hard in the third round I was seeing triple for the next three rounds. He knew how to hit and he was so awkward that I couldn’t time him and he caught me high on the head.

Quickest hands: Roy Jones -- He was fast. I’ll give him that, but that’s all I’ll give him. I would have knocked him out if I wasn’t drained from losing 44 pounds in six weeks. I went in (that fight) like a fool and wasn’t properly prepared. Quickest feet: Nunn -- He had some fast-ass feet (laughing), didn’t he? He was an escape artist for nine or 10 rounds, ‘til I caught up to him.

Best defense: McCallum: He was right there in front of me, but I had a hard time hitting him with clean punches. I basically came into my own by fighting him. I learned how to be elusive without running around the ring by fighting Mike McCallum three times.

Best chin: Tony Thornton: The punching postman from Philly! (laughs) I thought I was gonna knock him out easy. He was squared up with his chin right there for me to hit but I hit him with every punch I had and he wouldn’t budge. I hit him with my best left hook and he didn’t blink.

Best jab: McCallum: Mike’s jab was like a piston. There were other guys I fought who had good jabs, like Nunn and Jones, but they just had speed and they just flicked it. Mike popped that jab with authority. He was an old-school fighter.

Strongest: Samuel Peter: He was just a big-ass African with brute African strength.

Smartest: McCallum: Come on, who do you think it is? Who’s the one fighter I truly respect? You got it, the Body Snatcher, Mike McCallum. I fought my share of boxers who thought they were clever like Roy Jones, Michael Nunn, Montell Griffin, and Reggie Johnson, but they were all scared to really fight. McCallum boxed, he fought, he defended, and he didn’t run all over the ring. He could do all that because he was smart.

I just commented how underrated Mccallum was.

Good to see Toney got mad respect for Mike.

And i was always intrigued of the weight problem Toney must have faced against Jones.

44 pounds in 6 weeks! and yes I believe Toney because hes the realest mother****er to ever lace up gloves.

[MRBOOMER]

Best Overall Fighter: Muhammad Ali -- Muhammad had it all: natural talent, unbelievable speed and reflexes for a big man, skills, smarts, courage, you name it, he had it. But it was the uniqueness of his style and his personality that made him special. He was the first big man that moved. He was the first super star that talked. There’s only one Ali. He changed the concept of boxing.

Best Boxer: (three-way tie) Sugar Ray Leonard, Willie Pastrano and Luis Rodriguez -- It’s hard for me to pick one out of those three. I trained so many good boxers. I love boxers because they hang around the sport longer than brawlers. Ray was as complete a boxer as I ever saw. Willie was special because he didn’t have the power that my other boxers had. He was a pure boxer. He relied on footwork, timing and guts. He out-boxed a great fighter when he beat Harold Johnson to win the light heavyweight title. Nobody thought he could do it. Pastrano out-boxed heavyweights who outweighed him by 20 pounds, and he had no punch! Rodriguez, in my opinion, is one of the most-underrated boxers ever. He doesn’t get enough credit for how good he was and for who he beat. He had the misfortune of being a welterweight at the same time Emile Griffith was in that weight class. They fought four times and Luis lost three of them, all by split decision, but I thought my guy won every one of those losses. The sad thing is that the one time he beat Griffith, which was for the title, he didn’t really get any attention. Featherweight champ Davey Moore, who was knocked out by Sugar Ramos on that card in Los Angeles, fell into a coma and later died. That sad news overshadowed what should have been Luis’ shining moment. He was a magnificent fighter. He fought the toughest middleweights out there at the time and outclassed most of them. He played with (Rubin) “Hurricane” Carter. It broke my heart that Luis never got his due.

Best puncher: Florentino Fernandez -- I love boxers but I’ve trained some ****ers in my time. (Former heavyweight titleholder) Pinklon Thomas could whack, but nobody could punch like Fernandez. He was the best puncher out of Cuba. He was a converted southpaw so his left hook was murder. He broke Gene Fullmer’s forearm with a left hook during their middleweight title fight. He could hurt anyone with any kind of punch no matter where it landed.

Quickest hands: Rodriguez -- This surprises people. Everyone thinks it’s either Ray or Muhammad, and those two were fast. Don’t get me wrong. Speed was their bread and butter. Ray had the fastest combinations of all my fighters. Muhammad had a fast one-two. But the quickest hands belonged to Luis. He could hit you over and over again with a jab that you didn’t expect to get hit with. He was fast but also nimble and graceful. And it was effortless. Sometimes that speed made things too easy for him and he would get ****y with bigger guys. He did that with Nino Benvenuti, who he fought in Italy for the middleweight title. He won 10 straight rounds, just by sticking and moving, and then he comes back to the corner after the 10th round and tells me “I’m going to knock this guy out.” I tell him “No, take it easy, keep doing what you’re doing.” But he goes out and gets hit with a perfect left hook that drops him like a sack of bricks. The referee stands over him and starts counting to 10 as fast as he can. I yelled at him: “What’s the rush!? You could count to 100 and it wouldn‘t make a difference. My guy’s out.” Poor Luis.

Quickest feet: (tie) Leonard and Pastrano. -- Ray’s feet were quick in a way that he could shift position or change angles when on the inside in the blink of an eye. Most of his opponents couldn’t handle the way he moved those feet of his. Pastrano’s feet were fast in a different way. He was usually able to get in and out of range without getting hit but he also made his opponents move out of position by the way he moved his feet. He could feint you out of your jockstrap with his footwork! I’d have to say Willie had the most educated footwork of the fighters I’ve trained. He used to bounce on his toes so much I called him the pogo stick, but he didn’t have herky-jerky movement. His rhythm was good.

Best defense: (four-way tie) Rodriguez, Pastrano, Ali and Leonard -- This is a tough one. All of my guys learned defense and they all had their own ways to go about protecting themselves in the ring. Rodriguez kept his hands up and he had this constant bouncy head movement that made guys miss just by an inch or two. He didn’t have to duck or move around much to make a guy miss. He also blocked punches well with his gloves. Pastrano avoided trouble with his footwork and by constantly shifting his shoulders. His upper body was always moving to one angle or the other. In their prime, Ali and Leonard had the kind of reflexes that made them untouchable. Ray could get out of the way of another guy’s punch before he let it go. Ali would lean away from punches, usually with his hands down by his waist. But when he was young, he was hardly touched.

Best chin: Ali -- Muhammad took a great shot. Look at all the punchers he was in with, especially when he was older -- (Joe) Frazier, Foreman, (Ernie) Shavers. I wasn’t proud of the fact that he could take a big punch because he used to be able to avoid those shots. Believe me, I liked it better when we didn’t know if he could take a punch. Of course, I had a feeling he would be the tough son of a gun he turned out to be. Part of his ability to take a shot was his heart. I knew he had that when he got caught against Sonny Banks early in his career. Sonny hit him with a left hook in the first round that was so hard and on the money that Muhammad was out cold on his way down. He woke up when he hit the canvas and got up to drop Sonny in the next round and then stop him a few rounds later. That’s when I knew I had a great fighter.

Best jab: (three-way tie) Rodriguez, Ali, Leonard -- This is another tough one. I was lucky to train so many good boxers who could jab. I taught the jab as boxing’s most important punch but these three already had good jabs before they came to train with me. When I think about it, all of my guys had good jabs. It was Pastrano’s main punch. Pinklon Thomas had a good left stick. He gave Mike Tyson trouble with his jab when Tyson was at his best. But the best jabs of the guys I trained belonged to Luis, Ray and Muhammad. Ray had a great jab. Muhammad’s was a thing of beauty. Luis’ jab was smooth but tricky. These guys could dominate fights with their jabs.

Strongest: Ali -- Look what Muhammad did to Liston when he was still growing! He manhandled guys who were known for their strength. Muhammad was a lot stronger than people thought. That’s how he was able to slow Frazier down, by tying him up inside. It’s how he wore Foreman down in Zaire. By the time his body fully matured in the late 1960s, there weren’t a lot of guys who could outmuscle Ali.

Smartest: no pick -- They all had their smarts, every fighter I ever trained. People think I’m joking around when I say this but I‘m serious. Fighters are much smarter than people realize. I know this because as their trainer it was my job to get to know them, and I did. I got to know every one of my fighters like I was their best friend or their brother. That to me is the essence of training. You learn your kid’s thinking and you figure out how to bring out his talent and his confidence when it’s time to fight. You have to recognize the smarts in your fighter if you want to get the best out of him. I tried to do that with my fighters and I think I usually did a pretty good job. I had great times with all my fighters. They were all very special people.

[MRBOOMER]

That ones a lil different it's best I've trained with Angelo Dundee.

[sigrab jr]

So these are mostly retired figters.

I would like to see Roy Jones himself, Hopkins, Mayweather, JMM, Wlad.