We always talk about the exciting -- Who are the most boring fighters of all time ?

[APerno]

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I guess it's really just a matter of style preferences.

To me they're boring because sometimes they grab, sometimes they dominate too many snoozers, sometimes they just dominate, and sometimes because they refuse to engage.

Not in any particular order:

Pernell Whitaker
Muhammad Ali
Carlos Monzon
Gene Tunney
Jake LaMotta
Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Michael Nunn
Larry Holmes
Hector Camacho
Waldimir Klitschko

Everybody on this list would make me hesitate to buy a ticket; you'll have to tell me the opponent first, and even then for a couple of them the answer would still be no.

[jamamb]

even though wlad was so safety first i was surprised with the knockouts he often got that ppl still found him so boring, often you just get people who will fawn over ko puncher

that makes me think actually, about boring ko punchers . seems like a rare but real thing

[paddy chavez]

Johnny Nelson had some stinkers

[oogiebe]

Floyd Mayweather

[Scypion]

Ernie Terrell
Joey Maxim

[chrisjs1985]

In recent years I've found Andre Ward, Floyd Mayweather, Winky Wright, Wladimir Klitshcko, Guillermo Rigondeaux to be good cures for insomnia. Not sure if Shawn Porter would be "boring" but I've seen car wrecks that are prettier to look at than his "style".

[gilgamesh]

John Ruiz and Mickey Bey were boring basically all the time. The only time either ever entertained me was when they were getting stopped by somebody, and unfortunately that didn't happen nearly enough for my liking.

[Onetimeonly]

Miguel Vazquez, Hugo corro, Tony tubbs, Richard avril, akinwande, Cory spinks

[handsofstone]

Emile Griffith
Gene Fullmer
Carmen Basilio
Jack Johnson
Junior Witter

[gilgamesh]

Emile Griffith
Gene Fullmer
Carmen Basilio
Jack Johnson
Junior Witter

You gotta be joking. Carmen Basilio was in the Ring Magazine Fight of the Year, 5 consecutive years in a row

[handsofstone]

Emile Griffith
Gene Fullmer
Carmen Basilio
Jack Johnson
Junior Witter

You gotta be joking. Carmen Basilio was in the Ring Magazine Fight of the Year, 5 consecutive years in a row

Granted Basilio and Fullmer aren't your conventional boring fighters but I find their old fights a tough watch, I hate a lot of the old classics, that marauding style does nothing for me

[Onetimeonly]

Emile Griffith
Gene Fullmer
Carmen Basilio
Jack Johnson
Junior Witter

You gotta be joking. Carmen Basilio was in the Ring Magazine Fight of the Year, 5 consecutive years in a row

Granted Basilio and Fullmer aren't your conventional boring fighters but I find their old fights a tough watch, I hate a lot of the old classics, that marauding style does nothing for me

You ever watch fusari/bratton? If not check it out.

[gilgamesh]

Emile Griffith
Gene Fullmer
Carmen Basilio
Jack Johnson
Junior Witter

You gotta be joking. Carmen Basilio was in the Ring Magazine Fight of the Year, 5 consecutive years in a row

Granted Basilio and Fullmer aren't your conventional boring fighters but I find their old fights a tough watch, I hate a lot of the old classics, that marauding style does nothing for me

The grainy footage makes it a tough watch, but the fights themselves are excellent.

[Caractacus]

Should the truely "Boring" even be talked about that much?
How about those who had potential but squandered it for one reason or another
and or those who never even got ranked.
now that would be interesting to discuss.

[HomicideHenry]

CONSISTENTLY BORING, should be the key operative words here. Everyone has a bad night, or a couple of bad nights, so I don't hold it against them. Even the men I'll list below had some fun fights, though they were consistently boring.

John Ruiz, Nicolai Valuev, Chris Byrd, Floyd Mayweather, Joshua Clottey, Wladimir Klitschko... I'm sure I'll think of more later, but, just because someone is boring in or out of the ring doesn't equate to them not being great.

Gilgamesh earlier said it's hard to watch older fights because the footage isn't all that great--- that's why when I look at film of Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, etc I always think that whenever the technology catches up that computers could calculate just how fast these men really were moving based on 16 frames per second.

Today it's 150+ frames a second. Once that happens people will see just how special these people actually were. 40s, 50s film footage for me is reasonable enough to fully enjoy. That's going at nearly 70 frames a second, and should satisfy a viewer.

I don't berate the stylists, or counter punchers either. People almost always call it boring, but to me that's what boxing is all about. Pernell Whitaker may not be on anyone's top twenty favorite's list but I absolutely love watching that man make guys like Chavez look ordinary.

[APerno]

CONSISTENTLY BORING, should be the key operative words here. Everyone has a bad night, or a couple of bad nights, so I don't hold it against them. Even the men I'll list below had some fun fights, though they were consistently boring.

John Ruiz, Nicolai Valuev, Chris Byrd, Floyd Mayweather, Joshua Clottey, Wladimir Klitschko... I'm sure I'll think of more later, but, just because someone is boring in or out of the ring doesn't equate to them not being great.

Gilgamesh earlier said it's hard to watch older fights because the footage isn't all that great--- that's why when I look at film of Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, etc I always think that whenever the technology catches up that computers could calculate just how fast these men really were moving based on 16 frames per second.

Today it's 150+ frames a second. Once that happens people will see just how special these people actually were. 40s, 50s film footage for me is reasonable enough to fully enjoy. That's going at nearly 70 frames a second, and should satisfy a viewer.

I don't berate the stylists, or counter punchers either. People almost always call it boring, but to me that's what boxing is all about. Pernell Whitaker may not be on anyone's top twenty favorite's list but I absolutely love watching that man make guys like Chavez look ordinary.

For me here is the rub when it comes to Whitaker. You said he 'makes guys like Chavez look ordinary.' There is a legitimacy to that statement, another way to look at it is to say: Whitaker was more effective than Chavez and even this is another true statement, but what Whitaker actually did, that was so effective, was to stop Chavez from fighting him (he made Chavez look ordinary) but then Whitaker never tried to follow up that effectiveness by bringing the fight to Chavez. He was content with just neutralizing Chavez and expected that to be enough to get him the win.

People wanted Whitaker to get the decision because he beat their expectations not because he beat Chavez. I thought the fight boring and I blamed Whitaker who never tried to rise above being merely 'effective.'

[HomicideHenry]

That is a fair criticism. But at that time, Chavez was blowing everybody away, so the achievement was greater THEN than it is now retrospectively. To be neutralized the way he was, being on this legendary win streak, was quite spectacular.

[chrisjs1985]

CONSISTENTLY BORING, should be the key operative words here. Everyone has a bad night, or a couple of bad nights, so I don't hold it against them. Even the men I'll list below had some fun fights, though they were consistently boring.

John Ruiz, Nicolai Valuev, Chris Byrd, Floyd Mayweather, Joshua Clottey, Wladimir Klitschko... I'm sure I'll think of more later, but, just because someone is boring in or out of the ring doesn't equate to them not being great.

Gilgamesh earlier said it's hard to watch older fights because the footage isn't all that great--- that's why when I look at film of Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, etc I always think that whenever the technology catches up that computers could calculate just how fast these men really were moving based on 16 frames per second.

Today it's 150+ frames a second. Once that happens people will see just how special these people actually were. 40s, 50s film footage for me is reasonable enough to fully enjoy. That's going at nearly 70 frames a second, and should satisfy a viewer.

I don't berate the stylists, or counter punchers either. People almost always call it boring, but to me that's what boxing is all about. Pernell Whitaker may not be on anyone's top twenty favorite's list but I absolutely love watching that man make guys like Chavez look ordinary.

For me here is the rub when it comes to Whitaker. You said he 'makes guys like Chavez look ordinary.' There is a legitimacy to that statement, another way to look at it is to say: Whitaker was more effective than Chavez and even this is another true statement, but what Whitaker actually did, that was so effective, was to stop Chavez from fighting him (he made Chavez look ordinary) but then Whitaker never tried to follow up that effectiveness by bringing the fight to Chavez. He was content with just neutralizing Chavez and expected that to be enough to get him the win.

People wanted Whitaker to get the decision because he beat their expectations not because he beat Chavez. I thought the fight boring and I blamed Whitaker who never tried to rise above being merely 'effective.'

Whitaker definitely won the fight but I understand your point. It's like both did nothing but Whitaker looked better doing nothing. That's how I viewed Mayweather-Pacquaio (which I'll never watch again). I think Whitaker had some fairly fun to watch fights because sometimes he made defensive fighting look "not boring" but for the most part he was a snooze for me.

I found him more interesting than Mayweather who really just fought like he had a cheat code for a couple of video games (i.e he limited the styles he fought and if it was a supremely skilled boxer i.e Marquez he was far too small and at a major disadvantage) and would get a round or two up and just play out the clock. It's truly amazing to me so many people bought his fights. I watch everything and even I had to stop watching his fights.

Back to Whitaker, a fight he blew was De La Hoya. I still think he won but he was so content to just make Oscar look bad and showboat whereas he could have made most the rounds more decisive.

[DrDuke]

That's actually pretty subjective and depends on different factors. When boxers dominate with beautiful display of skills (Tunney, Whitaker, Mayweather, Usyk, etc) that can't be boring for me. I'd rather find ugly inside mauling (like in Benn and Hatton bouts) more boring, than Mayweather-like sweet science dominance. Although when some fighter is a knowingly much worse one, that becomes boring in any case, those are mismatches. Anti-boxing is boring too. Like with Hopkins. Those are actually the situations of fauling, I called that anti-boxing not without reason. The "ideal" of boring fighter for me is John Ruiz. There's no boxing in his matches, no fighting even, just hugging, openly fauling for god's sake. Ruiz could have been DQed against Holyfield, Rahman, Golota, f#$%ing everyone he fought. Not fought really, but wrestled, hugged, whatever. That was as boring as it could have ever been.

[chrisjs1985]

That's actually pretty subjective and depends on different factors. When boxers dominate with beautiful display of skills (Tunney, Whitaker, Mayweather, Usyk, etc) that can't be boring for me. I'd rather find ugly inside mauling (like in Benn and Hatton bouts) more boring, than Mayweather-like sweet science dominance. Although when some fighter is a knowingly much worse one, that becomes boring in any case, those are mismatches. Anti-boxing is boring too. Like with Hopkins. Those are actually the situations of fauling, I called that anti-boxing not without reason. The "ideal" of boring fighter for me is John Ruiz. There's no boxing in his matches, no fighting even, just hugging, openly fauling for god's sake. Ruiz could have been DQed against Holyfield, Rahman, Golota, f#$%ing everyone he fought. Not fought really, but wrestled, hugged, whatever. That was as boring as it could have ever been.

I'd put Andre Ward in that anti-boxing crowd too but his is even more disappointing because at 25-30 he was fighting like 45-50 year old Hopkins already and clearly had more athletic and technical ability than John Ruiz. I am unsure as to why he was trying to be forced on us as this beautiful boxer with wonderful technique. Max Kellerman particularly should be ashamed of such blind fanboying.

[DrDuke]

That's actually pretty subjective and depends on different factors. When boxers dominate with beautiful display of skills (Tunney, Whitaker, Mayweather, Usyk, etc) that can't be boring for me. I'd rather find ugly inside mauling (like in Benn and Hatton bouts) more boring, than Mayweather-like sweet science dominance. Although when some fighter is a knowingly much worse one, that becomes boring in any case, those are mismatches. Anti-boxing is boring too. Like with Hopkins. Those are actually the situations of fauling, I called that anti-boxing not without reason. The "ideal" of boring fighter for me is John Ruiz. There's no boxing in his matches, no fighting even, just hugging, openly fauling for god's sake. Ruiz could have been DQed against Holyfield, Rahman, Golota, f#$%ing everyone he fought. Not fought really, but wrestled, hugged, whatever. That was as boring as it could have ever been.

I'd put Andre Ward in that anti-boxing crowd too but his is even more disappointing because at 25-30 he was fighting like 45-50 year old Hopkins already and clearly had more athletic and technical ability than John Ruiz. I am unsure as to why he was trying to be forced on us as this beautiful boxer with wonderful technique. Max Kellerman particularly should be ashamed of such blind fanboying.

Yeah, Ward utilized anti-boxing frequently.

[oogiebe]

In all seriousness, John Ruiz was the most consistently boring fighter I've ever seen on that level. Nothing made me happier than to watch him v. Tua.

[APerno]

That's actually pretty subjective and depends on different factors. When boxers dominate with beautiful display of skills (Tunney, Whitaker, Mayweather, Usyk, etc) that can't be boring for me. I'd rather find ugly inside mauling (like in Benn and Hatton bouts) more boring, than Mayweather-like sweet science dominance. Although when some fighter is a knowingly much worse one, that becomes boring in any case, those are mismatches. Anti-boxing is boring too. Like with Hopkins. Those are actually the situations of fauling, I called that anti-boxing not without reason. The "ideal" of boring fighter for me is John Ruiz. There's no boxing in his matches, no fighting even, just hugging, openly fauling for god's sake. Ruiz could have been DQed against Holyfield, Rahman, Golota, f#$%ing everyone he fought. Not fought really, but wrestled, hugged, whatever. That was as boring as it could have ever been.

I forgot to add Gianfranco Rosi to my list, this guy drove me crazy; is he an example of anti-boxing?

[DrDuke]

That's actually pretty subjective and depends on different factors. When boxers dominate with beautiful display of skills (Tunney, Whitaker, Mayweather, Usyk, etc) that can't be boring for me. I'd rather find ugly inside mauling (like in Benn and Hatton bouts) more boring, than Mayweather-like sweet science dominance. Although when some fighter is a knowingly much worse one, that becomes boring in any case, those are mismatches. Anti-boxing is boring too. Like with Hopkins. Those are actually the situations of fauling, I called that anti-boxing not without reason. The "ideal" of boring fighter for me is John Ruiz. There's no boxing in his matches, no fighting even, just hugging, openly fauling for god's sake. Ruiz could have been DQed against Holyfield, Rahman, Golota, f#$%ing everyone he fought. Not fought really, but wrestled, hugged, whatever. That was as boring as it could have ever been.

I forgot to add Gianfranco Rosi to my list, this guy drove me crazy; is he an example of anti-boxing?

Yeah. And also Gene Fullmer.

[Seamus]

A guy who can't get out of the way of a punch is more exciting than one who can ? Seems like what alot of these picks imply.