Defying the eye test

[Ambling Alp II]

Usually, if you see a guy enough times against a variety of opponents, you get a rough idea of how good he was. However, occasionally there is a guy that did better than expected.

A couple that I thought of were Gene Fullmer and Trevor Berbick. Neither had had much that stood out. (Outside of Fullmer's constant pressure.) Yet they beat guys who seemed better on film.

I thought it would be fun to compile of list of more guys like that.

[Counter-puncher]

Orlando Salido
Marcos Maidana


definitely a couple of names that come to mind, awkward lunging wide-swinging styles

similarly Bazooka Limon
Giovani Segura

[margaret thatcher]

Monzon , looks pretty slow and not really that amazing at times

[adislav123]

Monzon , looks pretty slow and not really that amazing at times

[margaret thatcher]

Are you stupid because you bang your head so much

[Ambling Alp II]

It's not hard to understand why Monzon was great. He was technically sound, had a great chin and very good power. He was not the kind of guy that defied the eye test.

[margaret thatcher]

Give any great fighter and watch them in their fights, and you can see why they were great and had the effect they did on their opponent--in other words why they are prevailing. Some looked visually a lot more impressive than others though and Monzon is a comparatively slow and cumbersome one. He had other abilities to make up for that, duh, just as a guy like Fulmer had great stamina and workrate and toughness, only a noob couldn't see that

And lol at Berbick, some low hanging fruit there

[gilgamesh]

Sam Soliman was always unusually effective at a high level I thought as he often came off as looking quite amateurish, but held his own with many a top fighter.

Jose Luis Castillo was sneaky good on the inside with his body punches in the clinches and stuff. His effective work often when unnnoticed until it's late in the fight, and his opponent is running out of gas from all the wear-down stuff he had done all fight.

Hell Tyson Fury never struck me as a guy that was ever gonna be THE MAN in the Heavyweight division, but that's by God what he is now. So he defied the eye test for quite a while. I mean hell if you had told us years ago that the Heavyweight with a pic uppercutting himself by accident in a fight was gonna be on Pound for Pound lists someday due to his perceived skill you'd have got laughed off the forum.

I don't think even his biggest supporters were anticipating him beating Wilder the way he did in the rematch.

[Tony1244]

Usually, if you see a guy enough times against a variety of opponents, you get a rough idea of how good he was. However, occasionally there is a guy that did better than expected.

A couple that I thought of were Gene Fullmer and Trevor Berbick. Neither had had much that stood out. (Outside of Fullmer's constant pressure.) Yet they beat guys who seemed better on film.

I thought it would be fun to compile of list of more guys like that.

Berbick is a great example. I read an article on him early is his career in The Ring that basically laughed at how bad he was. That was way before he beat anyone of note.

[Counter-puncher]

Hell Tyson Fury never struck me as a guy that was ever gonna be THE MAN in the Heavyweight division, but that's by God what he is now. So he defied the eye test for quite a while. I mean hell if you had told us years ago that the Heavyweight with a pic uppercutting himself by accident in a fight was gonna be on Pound for Pound lists someday due to his perceived skill you'd have got laughed off the forum.

I don't think even his biggest supporters were anticipating him beating Wilder the way he did in the rematch.

some were, but not many. hell, even Henry although he was one fight early (he said Fury would take it to Wilder and put him on the back foot to take away his power) predicted it, just for the first fight not the second.

[Ambling Alp II]

Usually, if you see a guy enough times against a variety of opponents, you get a rough idea of how good he was. However, occasionally there is a guy that did better than expected.

A couple that I thought of were Gene Fullmer and Trevor Berbick. Neither had had much that stood out. (Outside of Fullmer's constant pressure.) Yet they beat guys who seemed better on film.

I thought it would be fun to compile of list of more guys like that.

Berbick is a great example. I read an article on him early is his career in The Ring that basically laughed at how bad he was. That was way before he beat anyone of note.

He was the first guy I thought of. There is really nothing at all that stands out about him. Obviously, he was not a legend or anything like that. However, he managed to beat John Tate, Greg Page, and Pinklon Thomas. They all seemed much better than him.
I'm sure there are a lot of other guys that no one has mentioned yet.

[Onetimeonly]

Margarito, barkley

[Lenny Cravats]

Carl Froch.

Poor footwork, poor balance, poor defence and not the fastest hands.

What he did have was an iron chin, all the aggression in the world, bags of sheer determinism and a massive set of bollocks.

[JC]

Carl Froch.

Poor footwork, poor balance, poor defence and not the fastest hands.

What he did have was an iron chin, all the aggression in the world, bags of sheer determinism and a massive set of bollocks.

Long arms too.