Fastest white boxer?

[billeau2]

It's definitely a head-scratcher.

You have a guy like Jofre, who might possible be the best ever. We don't have enough film to support that claim, but it does seem very possible. Maybe even likely.... and then it plummets.

It's kind of like Harry Greb. Different sources said his mother was from Ireland, which would make a lot of success considering his success in the ring. Now, I have read that he was full-blooded German. The one German guy to decide to box, and he's far and away the best ever. He was Catholic German, so he was still apart of the same proletariat that Irish, Jews and Italians were drawn from 100 years ago. But you don't really hear about German fighters. They were just a slot below Anglo-Americans, and pretty much didn't have to reduce themselves to something meant for the lower classes. But yeah, the ONE guy who decided he'd make a go of it has been, far and away, the best Boxer there ever was. Talk about beating the odds.

As for more craziness about Brazil: They were some of the first to have Muay Thai fighters. That always blew my mind. Not like you see in Holland, but they incorporated it into the Luta Livre combat systems.
Belfort was also the first to show that you could be very successful in MMA using mostly Boxing, and very little else. Their fighters usually had the best application of pure Boxing skills, too, until recently.

But yeah, huge country, w/ a LOVE of Martial Arts, but Jofre is their only fighter of note. And no one seems to really know why.

When we start to look at German and Dutch migration there are some clues. There are Germanic fighters like Schmelling, and even when I was a kid born in 64, you still had reminents of a German Ghetto in Manhattan... Yorkville on the upper east side. You could still get Hoffbrau stuff there lol. A considerable amount of German and Dutch migration was to rural communities because of religious persecution. Pennsylvnia Dutch and Germanic groups that were pacifist, and primarily farmers...groups like the Shakers, the Amish, etc.

There certainly was a migration of Scandinavian and other Northern European groups, but the differences between how many, where people settled, etc might have accounted for less Germanic fighters.

[The Old LefHook]

It is difficult to supplant traditions already firmly in place, or even to share their ancient flower beds. Extreme motivation and luck required. You are the expert on martial history. Fighting only with arms is rare in martial history, isn't it? Boxing must seem a tad retrogressive to cultures with strong hand to hand traditions already. Imagine being told your opponent will strike at you with arms only, or being recruited for the sport in your native land. White men recruited for the sun dance would have balked too.

Of course then there is the racial aspect of it, which will get you tagged a racist for even discussing it, by bloated bŭggery. One alarming possibility is: Asians are not built for it.

Not built for what, did you say? Repeated buffeting, head punches, then, sir. Jaw and skull may be poorly designed for absorbing repeated blows. The anatomy of the races varies in small but significant degree in many fine aspects, jaw and skull attachment being but one.

Brazil's lethargy with regard to the manly art of self defense is certainly cultural. For one, she has another way of kicking ašs in the street and in the gym which is clearly superior. Since most countries' established native or transplanted martial art defeats a boxer heads up almost every time, why bother with pũssy boxing at all?

Popo was Brazillian, and they got well positioned behind him. Ahem! For in their squalid favelas they love their celebrity news, and will get behind anyone famous. And that's a fact, by basking bŭggery.

[Rockin']

Willie Pep, Joe Calzaghe, Lomachenko, Caleb Plant

If Calzaghe wasn't slapping so much he would not be as fast. ………...Rockin'

[Joe Beamish]

There have been plenty of fast twitch white boxers at the lower weights. What doesn't seem to happen is heavier guys who still have that twitchy speed. White guys just ain't got that.

[Mooshashi]

Paul Spadafora.

[The Old LefHook]

If Calzaghe wasn't slapping so much he would not be as fast. ………...Rockin'

Correct!!!

[The Old LefHook]

Next on the agenda, true observations of course, the thing I specialize in.

Quite true that whites do not have the fast twitch fibers of blacks. But there is something else the white boys lack that the black boys often have--flow and grace--pretty rhythm.

Hardly any white blows have black flow & grace. Even the ones with high coordination such as Tunney do not have beautiful flow & grace to go with it. Their rhythm is jerky and not flowing. Tunney gets the job done well. However, he does not look flowing and beautiful doing it, he just looks very efficient.

The type of grace we are talking about really began with Robinson, which is one reason he is held in such high regard--he was the first. Even Willie Pep did not move with the flowing grace a dancer like Robinson did. In his day no one moved as pretty as Robinson. The white boys were efficient but not beautiful. You will not find a single fighter who moved like Robinson before he did. Yes, when you change the game that much you will stay famous and revered.

Many things were just beginning with Robinson, and he was the one beginning them. He knew how to showboat, but not that entertainingly, for even black showboatery was in its infancy. To our eyes now Robinson looks like a comic hack trying to showboat out there. He did not have that bit down yet. Look at the mediocre showboatery in his exhibition with Willie Pepe. No one else was doing that at all at the time. Innovator, Sugar Ray.

[Lomadeaux]

Calzaghe slapped...

Lomachenko is fast as hell.

[Lomadeaux]

Incredible Speed.

[Lomadeaux]

You will not find a single fighter who moved like Robinson before he did. Yes, when you change the game that much you will stay famous and revered.

Well said. Casuals don't know much about him which is pretty insane to me.