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After watching Paulie get beat up last weekend I was wondering how challenging it would be for a boxer to not have a spark in his punches. Sure, its not all about brute force but you do need to have a pop in your punches, it helps wonders.
What soft punchers out there are Hall of Famers or had success (from past and present)?
The first ones that come to mind is Pernell Whitaker and Macho Camacho.
From what little I know of Whitaker he was a soft puncher by choice. When he wanted to hit hard, he did.
I think people would have said Mayweather but in his more recent fights we've seen this clearly isn't the case.
Considered generally as one of the top 3 P4P of all time, Gugliemo Papaleo also known as Willy Pep or Will o The Wisp. He was very quick and Floyd's defense often seems pale in compared to the elusiveness of Pep (hence the Will O the Wisp). He won a round on every 3 judges Card against Jackie Graves without throwing a single punch.... Graves never touched him despite throwing countless of shots. The most beautiful is that he did call the shot before the round to some journalists. The guy was fast and elusive, not much power though but he did compensate by being happy to touch you and then vanish. If you have no power, you gotta be quick and very elusive. The pep was
Calzaghe in the later stages of his career.
Chris Byrd , he couldnt hit like a HW , but was successful.
Earnie Shavers got by on skill even though he lacked power :)
Both of them had more snap than Paulie though. I can't really think of many Hall of Famers who had no snap. I suppose Miguel Canto didn't have much with 61 wins and only 15 KO's and Michael Carbajal with 49 and 16 KO's but both were around flyweight so i'd say it was more due to the size than anything. Emile Griffith wasn't a thunderous puncher I don't suppose with only 23 KO's in his 85 wins but he still managed to kill someone in the ring, Nicolino Locche only scored 14 ko's in 117 wins and was also a junior welter so i'd say he's the closest in the hall to Paulie, also Duilio Loi was similar with 26 in 115 wins but apart from the Italian connection and again being a 140lbs fighter I wouldn't say he had many similarities with Paulie. The biggest name with quite low power has to be Joey Maxim, yet he has a stoppage win over the greatest fighter ever IMO although it was more down to heat exhaustian than anything, his record was 82 wins and only 21 KO's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chino
Thats about all I can think of right now, but if you look at a fighter who reached a decent level I suppose there is Buster Mathis Jr who only scored 7 KO's. For a heavyweight that quite poor, now I am struggling to think of any more.
Ivan Calderon, the guy basically is already in a win/win situation for the rest of his career, he's 35, undefeated and a two division lineal champ, and the guy only has 6 ko's out of 33 wins, yet he's pretty much a shoe in for the HOF
Again though he's a light Flyweight, and IMO if you took his fighting style and put it into a 147 body, he would have a way better KO percentage.Quote:
Originally Posted by ElTerribleMorales
Also a bit pissed off I forgot about him in my list lol. Good one El Terrible!
Maxie Rosenbloom is in the Hall of Fame with a record of 207-39-26 with 19 KO's. I've never seen him fight and I guess KO numbers can be misleading sometimes but not that misleading. Also his nickname was Slapsie Maxie.
I think there needs to be a clear distinction made between "soft punchers" like Pernell, Camacho, ect and FLOWER PUNCHERS like Paulie Malignaggi.
The two blaring FLOWER PUNCHER examples that come to mind are two fellow Italians, Willie Pep and Nicolino Locche. Obviously both guys had a lot of success, but they both ran into guys eventually who jumped in on them and slugged them (which was either said than done against Locche who had Mayweather's slickness fighting on the inside). Obviously Saddler pounded Pep 3 out of 4 I think.
I guess you can add Sven Ottke to that list too.... LOL I feel so dirty...
Jake LaMotta
Willie Pep
Niccolino Locche
Yep...34 wins with 6 mighty KOs...and Mundine is one of them ;D ...Quote:
Originally Posted by Beanflicker
oktay urkel? the turkish boxer was like 10 kos from 35 or something... cant spell his name but lost to cotto in 11
Yeah but I wouldn't call Urkal world class. He fought 3 world level fighters (Cotto, Tszyu and Harris X2) and other than running Harris quite close first time round was beaten quite soundly each time. Although he did go the distance with Kostya Tszyu in his prime, not many can claim that.Quote:
Originally Posted by oakleyno1