"Slick Boxer" The Most Abused and Misused Term in Boxing

[pesticid]

To me slick has to do with a guys ability to trick the other guy.

A guy like Lara is a good boxer, but he doesn't really trick anyone because he fights as simple as a screwdriver. He is still hard to beat because he is good at the things he does, but it is not based on constantly tricking the other guy. Plus if a guy moves 3 4 feet out of range there is no need to be tricky because no one is buying that from that range, if someone moves 6 inches or less out of range that is slick because if done poorly trouble will happen.

Any guy can fool someone once and land a big shot, two or three times maybe if they have the right attributes. A truly slick guy will fool someone time and again, and make seem touching them like a near impossible task which will break most fighters.

That is another part of it a slick guy is really attacking a guys fighting mentality and breaking a guy that way. Rather than breaking down their body.


Not a lot of guys are truly slick though, and really when properly done it is very high level boxing.

Actually Lara tricks you all the time by moving, leaning back and leaning forward. He is not just jumping out, he resets you, he changes the angle on you and then he hits you all the while you're like "what did he do, he didn't even trick me?" lol. He tricks you by using boxing fundamentals, it doesn't always have to be as obvious as make you miss and make you pay. Being slick is not just about staying on the inside and making them miss. You can make them miss with your footwork as well.

Who comes to me as slick these days - it's Loma, Rigo, Lara, Manny, Crawford and even Kovalev. They all do in different ways but there is no one way of being slick like James Toney and Pernell Whitaker.

When Ali and Ray Leonard used a ton of movement just like Erislandy Lara everybody is calling them slick but Lara isn't?

[-PBP-]

[Img]




Duran was amazing man. Him, Whitaker and Mayweather are by far my 3 favorite fighters of all time. I need to learn how to make gifs.

[pesticid]

I highly disagree with that. Slick isn't a certain style, and it's not dancing and flicking jabs and avoiding your opponent, it's the ability to stand in range and manipulate the fight with your upper body. It's that ability to make a guy miss by inches over and over when you're right in front of him and come back with your own punches. That's what Toney and Whitaker and every great slick fighter did. That was Roberto Duran.

Nah dude, what you're saying is forget about the feet just use your upper body when the footwork is the second most important thing in boxing.

[SplitSecond]

[alexguiness]

Slick = hard to hit at range and a very accurate counter puncher in the pocket.

And black...doe.

[CubanGuyNYC]

I highly disagree with that. Slick isn't a certain style, and it's not dancing and flicking jabs and avoiding your opponent, it's the ability to stand in range and manipulate the fight with your upper body. It's that ability to make a guy miss by inches over and over when you're right in front of him and come back with your own punches. That's what Toney and Whitaker and every great slick fighter did. That was Roberto Duran.

Duran was way under prepared for the second Leonard fight due to heavy partying between fights and having to cut a tone of weight. Even Leonard said Duran was no where near the same guy he fought in Montreal. This has a lot to do with Leonard getting away with clowning Duran the way he did.

As for Duran being slick. He is widely considered in boxing to be one of the slickest boxers of all time. You might not think this because he doesn't fit the skin tone of the stereotypical Slickster but he is infact one of the best examples of 'slick'. Even Floyd Sr has been on video saying Duran was "Slick as hell, man".

I understand where you guys are coming from. We simply disagree on the definition. I do consider slickness a general style, not just a trait. Duran had the traits, but not the style, in my opinion. And, yes, black fighters have developed the stereotype for slickness. It's a cultural thing, some will even say it's a genetic thing. But although slickness has come to be associated with blackness, there have been fighters of different races that had slick styles. Willie Pep and Hector Camacho, to name just two, were very slick boxers.

I used the second Duran-Leonard fight to illustrate a point. Would Roberto have been slicker on another day? Perhaps. But on that day Leonard was the epitome of a slick fighter. The style was there in full bloom.

[The Gambler1981]

Actually Lara tricks you all the time by moving, leaning back and leaning forward. He is not just jumping out, he resets you, he changes the angle on you and then he hits you all the while you're like "what did he do, he didn't even trick me?" lol. He tricks you by using boxing fundamentals, it doesn't always have to be as obvious as make you miss and make you pay. Being slick is not just about staying on the inside and making them miss. You can make them miss with your footwork as well.

Who comes to me as slick these days - it's Loma, Rigo, Lara, Manny, Crawford and even Kovalev. They all do in different ways but there is no one way of being slick like James Toney and Pernell Whitaker.

When Ali and Ray Leonard used a ton of movement just like Erislandy Lara everybody is calling them slick but Lara isn't?

Lara does the same move over and over, he is not tricky. He is hard to deal with because his moves are down pat and he doesn't take risks.

Making someone miss while being able to land blows is being a good boxer.

Being able to attack and defend almost simultaneously is being slick. Lomachenko and Rigondeaux are slick the rest of that list is not, good boxers sure but not slick they are either defending or attacking.

[-Kev-]

It's pretty much boxing hippies trying to redefine what slick is and who is slick.

[ianjamsie]

A fighter that doesn't get hit every often, but still gets their punches off.

[BennyST]

While I agree 100% on Pernell and Toney, bro, I can't agree on Duran. Although Roberto's skill is under-appreciated, he was known primarily as a brawler. Young Ali was slick; Camacho was slick; "Sugar" Ray Leonard was slick. I can think of many who fit that description, but not Duran.

Duran was the very definition of a slick aggressive fighter. He was hardly a brawler. An absurd misconception. He was an aggressive counter puncher that set everything up with beautiful head movement, feints and counters.

Leonard wasn't what I would term slick in the second fight. He used basic footwork to stay out of range and his height and speed to keep away. Not really the traits most apply to the slick style of fighting.