One more thing about Whitaker's defense. One stat that always stuck out to me was that Pernell had a 20 fight span in his career where his opponents combined to land only 25% of their punches.
And these 20 fights were during his prime when he was fighting nothing but world champs and #1 contenders, it wasn't early in his career when he was fighting stepping-stone guys. And it's not like he made these guys miss because he focused on nothing but defense, he would make guys miss and throw 70-80 punches of his own each round.
I remember they kept showing the 25% stat during the Tito fight, because by then Whitaker was old, out of shape, and abusing cocaine, and it had stripped him of all his speed and reflexes. Tito landed something like 65% of his punches that night, which is incredible in any fight, but it was even more amazing because Tito did it against a guy who had been unhittable his entire career.