I just noticed Lamotta and Turpin could read Robinson and make him miss allot, especially during combinations in the case of Lamotta. If you can read someone it means there are tells there
Ok fair enough, I'm sticking to my original position on this point- pointing out Robinson telegraphing what amounts to the odd shot, doesn't really hold up as an argument for a major weakness of his, considering how consistently accurate he was with his combinations.
I'd define mistakes on a basic level as missing a punch or being tagged cleanly or any facet of the fighter's game that leads to either. Jones is more accurate and is hit less than Robinson. Robinson is more technically sound, just because Roy's unorthodox doesn't mean he's less skilled. Jones defence is exceptional, it's based on a radar, slipping from the hips. His inside and body defence too.
I'm not denying that though. As I say, I rate in terms of effectiveness ultimately. If Roy wants to dance around with one foot up his ass, but does the scoring, I will rate him highly. This wasn't exactly what you were getting at originally though mate. I was contesting your argument, which was about Ray as a technician, making mistakes in his defense but getting away with it due to his speed. Your argument which you're using for Roy in a positive light should be used consistently in a positive light with Robinson.
Your argument against Ray was essentially that he makes defensive mistakes but comes out on top because of his speed. This is a technical mistake made up for with a natural attribute. If you're applying that analysis towards Ray as a measure of his weakness, then you have to do so to a larger degree with Roy, because he is a better of example of technical weaknesses made up for with speed.
But when it comes to Roy, you instead want to shift the goal-posts and make it about effectiveness, not a technical issue. I completely agree with you that Roy is superman, able to get away with all kinds of crazy stuff in the ring due to his natural ability, maybe the best fighter ever. I'm just saying that if you, not me, are making the assessment of Ray's technical weaknesses, you have to do the same for Roy.
BTW look at amateur Roy and you see he is very technicially sound, as a shorter guy with super human speed he disposed of the jab and focused on his strengths, lead power punches. Because of Jones lesser height and reach in his weight classes he was never going to be as successful jabbing and throwing rights over the top from the outside. HE didn't have the greatest stamina but did have the greatest speed.
Yeah but man, are you really resorting to the argument that 'he could do it in the amateurs when he was bigger than opponents, it was when he hit the pros that he couldn't do it anymore'? I'm gunna stick to his pro career for the most telling assessment of the man's technical skills.
Well defence is half the sport and as incredible athlete himself why couldn't Robinson too have used his reflexes given his level of athletic advantage? Jones game did rely on reflexes but that's a skill in itself. You need to be skilled enough to slip a punch and be in a good defensive position after you slip it, his blocking of punches inside was top notch too. If it was all about being athletic we could get a gymnast to perform Jones style? It wouldn't happen. So defensively Jones was allot better.
The reflexes may have an element of skill to them, but they're largely a natural attribute based asset. The most important natural asset being speed. I'm completely fine in agreeing with you that Roy completely owns Ray in this regard. In terms of your question though, 'why couldn't Ray just do it too?', it's a bit simplified isn't it? It's surely a matter of fighting style on top of the things we've already discussed. Roy very often was a boxer at range, with much more of a focus on reflexes and making his man miss. Robinson boxed on the outside at times, he was versatile, but hell, we know what he was in the main, an all out fighter throwing caution to the wind. What you're doing would be like comparing Roy and Ray in the skills department, but only using combination punching as the defining character. It's only going to go one way.
I'm happy to say Roy is the faster man, using a lot of mobility and speed to evade punches much better than Ray did. I'm right with you on that. Compare that mobility and flashy stuff to Ray's footwork, a skilled technical matter. It's not close. Ray's foot placement choice was masterful. Roy was never about this kind of boxing. That's not to say he wasn't effective and therefore the master. He clearly was, at doing his own thing. For skills though, especially when we consider all aspects of the game, I don't see it for Roy.
To me Roy was superman.
I'd say Jones is better at counter punching, drawing leads, using lead powerpunches and I'd argue Jones has the better left hook.
Nah I don't agree with any of that. Robinson was countering up close on the inside, bending at the waist around his opponents and picking them apart to the body whenever they dared open up to throw. He could lead with any shot, uppercuts, the lot, all more technically proficient than Roy as well, i.e more reliant on skills, whereas Roy was launching a lot of technically flawed shots from across the ring and succeeding because he had super-man speed.
Robinson's left hook is one of the greatest shots in boxing history. I don't think I see the case for Roy there.
In terms of drawing leads, I like both men. Robinson made a living out of it. That said, so did Roy, and it was actually Roy's style flat out. So I give you that.
Now that you're talking technical matters though, we have to discuss maybe the most technical of affairs, punches in bunches. I have to revert back to my old comparison between Napoles and Pacquiao. In the former you had a great combination puncher, almost every shot in the combo was an identifiable technically sound shot, a hook, uppercut, cross, etc. In the latter you had a flurry man, not always, but in the main. It's the technique that separated their skills. It's very similar when you compare Roobinson and Jones. Jones with these rapid one-two, one-two-three-four type flurries of shots which aren't the most technically proficient. Ray with uppercuts and hooks reining in to body and head whilst using great technique in the waist to maneuver around his man to find more openings.
I'm not being biased, I just don't see this argument for Roy on the footage.
The only fighter to beat a prime Robinson without a weight advantage is a technician in Turpin though. And he fought loads of pressure fighters and few top level technicians/slicksters. Do you think if he fought Marshall or Burley weighing 143lbs he'd do a fare a whole lot better than he did against Lamotta?
Turpin wasn't all that of a great technician IMO. A ramrod jab with a lot of brawling falling in behind it. It strengthens my argument about the aggressive fighters being the way in to hopefully beating Ray. Also, Ray would have been at his finest as a light-middle, so it's not really accurate at all for you to claim Turpin was at no natural size advantage. Surely you are tarnishing Ray's legacy in his actual prime by claiming that he basically accumulated his success at 147 by picking on smaller men? Nonsense IMO.
Yeah I've always said Robinson would beat Burley. I don't see it for Charley at all, and I'm very much a great fan of him and his story. Read his book years ago and it remains my favourite boxing book ever, but I don't see how with his stylistic weaknesses that he beats a man who is going to outwork him while applying so much high quality in his shots. As I say, I don't think it's wise to try to outbox Ray with a high degree of defensive-mindedness to your stylistic makeup. You are inviting in very likely the most accurate and calculated blistering attacks of all time. Burley would be at a big stylistic disadvantage for me, I've always maintained that.
Every pressure fighter he faced had a huge advantage, Lamotta had 15lbs on him and he was past it against Fullmer/Basilio faced a significantly past prime version. Which slickster/technician had a huge advantage? None, why pure boxers did he even fight at MW?
As I keep saying, you're purely speculating in even going anywhere near the argument that a slickster beats Ray. It has simply never happened. What are you basing this on? Nothing. My claim that the aggressor is best suited to the job is actually based on something, we can pick apart the argument due to size advantages and being past prime, but at least the argument exists to be criticised. Yours doesn't.
Ray wasn't just a past prime world class operator when he was winning and losing at 16, he was still actually a great fighter. I think it's highly simplistic to dismiss the technical analysis we can draw from these fights.
If your argument is that we can't conclude that great pressure fighters have the potential to do well against Ray, on the basis of of him being past it when he incurred said losses, then your argument must also be that we can't draw any analyses of Tyson's stylistic weaknesses from his losses to Holyfield. I don't agree with these simplistic arguments.
Anyway the reason I think technicians are a better foil for Robinson is his slightly leaky defence especially to jabs and his slight tendency to give tells. Effectively they can land first and make him miss.
1. The actual evidence shows that Ray always came out on top against technicians.
2. The argument you're making doesn't support a claim that Roy beats Ray, because Roy wasn't a technician.
3. Your original argument was about slicksters, not technicians, the two aren't necessarily the same.
4. No slickster ever beat Sugar Ray Robinson.
Agreed but not because of this, McCallum is very hard to hit clean and has an A class jab
Fair enough then, we see it differently.
I think Monzon and Hagler's jab give Robinson allot of issues, Monzon could potentially beat Robinson to the punch with his much longer reach and superior jab. I could see Monzon following the Turpin blueprint.
Good point. Maybe Monzon does use the Turpin gameplan, especially with his massive size advantage
With Hagler you have to think of the Leonard fight and ask, wouldn't prime Robinson do a bit better, I'm not sure in all honesty, it would be a great fight but I'd give Robinson the edge. I suppose you could say 'wouldn't Robinson do a bit better than Griffith or Valdez and beat Monzon too'....
Yeah ok fair enough. I don't think Robinson would fight like Leonard did against Hagler at all though, using a gameplan to steal rounds and all that shit, that's not Robinson at all. I like Hagler in that one.
But isn't taking Robinson to the wire at his best weight better than being 15lbs heavier and edging a close contest due to a weight advantages? On that basis Maxim was a backfoot technician too, but I wouldn't use it as a reason to pick that style as a harder style for Robinson to handle.
Let's be clear here, Robinson at 175 dying from exhaustion because he's been dancing circles around Joey Maxim all night, is not a great point of technical analysis.
Maxim was a backfoot technician, being completely schooled. Any actual technical analysis you draw from the fight, goes in Ray's favour.
I don't see the argument for taking Ray to the wire as being one that any great technicians actually beat him, because it never happened.
Also bare in mind Robinson was happy to face Lamotta 5 times but wouldn't face Burley once, even for what I believe was a career high payday in 1946. He didn't fight Marshall, Cocoa Kid, Holman Williams either. Those were the slick guys of his era. You can't say he performed better against slicksters when he didn't fight them and even possibly avoided them.
But what empirical evidence do you have to say that these men would have beaten him? None. You can speculate all you want about how these men may have done this or that to him, but I will deal with the actual facts with we have to go off when it comes to analsing his style, and that can only be done off the fights he did have.
It's sad we didn't get those fights man, it really is. These non-existent fights don't offer me any technical analysis though, so they're irrelevant.
HE did sit down to discuss a fight with Archie Moore though, after his retirement when Archie was LHW CHamp. Archie said he'd goto 50-50 even though he was champ, Ray said no it'll be 70-30 for me. Archie asked his wife to bring his coat and left the room.
Same again. What are we concluding here in terms of stylistic strengths and weaknesses? Nothing. You're asking me to consider fights that didn't happen over fights that did happen, in which we have empirical evidence of his style. I'll stick to the facts mate.
I suppose the issue is what you consider skill and you consider physical ability. Every part of boxing is a combination of both so it depends how you see it and I think we just draw different lines in the sand. Are Roy's trap setting, head movement, feints and half steps not skills. And although he has fast hands, but that's partly to do with the punching technique, the shifts in bodyweight
Lets both be honest adults here. Roy's technique/physical attribute balance is heavily in favour of natural attributes.................heavily. Lots of flurrying as opposed to combos, straightened back and legs, lots of mobility over well schooled footwork.
He was superman. No great technician.
I don't think most would consider Walcott to be unskilled, he's unconventional, but he outboxed the more technical Joe Louis because of his ring smarts and techniques. Whitaker and Mayweather break some textbook rules but obviously both are massively skilled.
I never said anything about textbook rules though, you can be a skilled technician without sticking to the book, on the contrary, great technical skills allow a man to go outside the book, just look at Marc Johnson. Roy on the other hand was doing all kinds of things that were never about technical skills hands behind the back, jumping around with looping right hands, lots of little rapid arm punches etc. It's just not the same kind of thing. He wasn't a technician at all for me.
Also, on Louis and Walcott, I'm not claiming that a less skilled fighter can't have good patches against a more skilled fighter, not at all, Collins could beat Eubank twice. I'm just saying that Robinson was more skilled than Roy, not necessarily that he beats him.
Hit and not getting hit is the name of the game. If SRR has a more porous defence and is slower, what's stopping RJJ from potshotting and countering SRR all night? It's simplistic analysis, but being defensively better and being quicker just means you're going to land first.
No it doesn't. Zab Judah was defensively better and quicker than Tszyu, he landed first once or twice but it didn't do him all that good. You're right here, that's a very simplistic analysis.
With regards to Roy's chin you have to ask if his durability was always that bad at the lower weights. He was never stopped until he was 35 and once you've been knocked unconscious once, it happens again more easily.
You can also say he hardly took a clean shot and then, when he did start getting hit, when his chin wasn't battle-worn at all, he started getting knocked out a lot.
An opinion more than fact, I'd consider Burley superior to Gavilan, we'll have to agree to disagree, although Burley would stylistically be a more similar to Jones albeit slower.
Well I give my opinion on Ray-Charley above. I don't see it for him, so if you're making the comparison stylistically between Roy and Charley I don't personally see that as being a good thing for Roy.
Also, I like Gavilan over Burley.
He's not more skilled, you've said he's inferior defensively, which is half of boxing. The first time I sparred I was looking flashy on the bag beforehand. Got in to spar with a fat old ginger alcoholic, 'boxing's all defence, defence and more defence' he told me. I was thinking 'alright mate', he looked so slow. I threw a few flashy punches with good form, he picked them off, I tried everything in my repertoire, he picked them all off. That was me put in my place :lol:
:lol: I used to have similar experiences with a French fella who I used to spar with, he taught me everything I know about range and defense. He used to jab the shit out of me in sparring, it was vile man.
You're distorting what I said about defense though. I said Roy is better in terms of defense when it comes to reflexes. I also said Ray's main defensive tool was his footwork, which literally pisses all over Roy's in terms of skills. Roy was a mobility man, with somewhat excessive movement, it's much different to great footwork, like Ray's which is all about technical skill and ring generalship, it's similar to Hopkins in that regard. Keeping an opponent out of position to land as opposed to the flashier variety of dodging with reflexes due to natural speed, which is Roy's game.
And again, you have to remember that Roy actually fought a defensive style of fighting much more than Ray did. When Ray did his backfoot game, like the first two thirds against LaMotta, he was putting on a masterclass technically, and that's where the bulk of skills are in your technical game.
Add to this the big differential in combination punching and inside skills and I just don't see it for Roy.
You may consider that innate ability but I think it takes a high level of skill to pull off Jones level of defence.
I consider it both, but the innate ability is clearly much more of a factor in Roy's game than it is for Ray
I disagree on the basis he has the ability to make an opponent miss and make them pay in the same manner, regardless of the technique used to reach that goal.
Largely due to his superman speed, as aforementioned. It's not like he did it the way a Tyson did, with supreme skill and technique.
Yes I didn't mean to imply it was a robbery, it wasn't but it must have been close.
Fair enough. Robinson still won
You can never be completely confident in your pick in a fight between 2 such dominant fighters, don't get me wrong, despite my criticisms of him I think Robinson is incredible. But then again what's to say Jones doesn't knock Robinson out, yes Robinson was durable but when has he ever faced anyone who was such a brutal puncher to the head and body?
It could happen but I'm gunna refrain from saying anyone knocks Ray out, because there's no evidence to suggest it does. You can speculate though yeah.
Again though, you're making this into a head to head fight debate between Roy and Robinson, which I keep reiterating is, and was not, my point.
A comparison ultimately is somewhat head to head, even if it isn't. Robinson was never really in with a faster boxer than himself because he was the fastest of his time even though he faced Gavilan, Gavilan had a better defence but was slower and much less athletic imo although I haven't seen the contest. Robinson would be slower here and his opponent would have a better defence.
Fair enough. I'm glad you're accepting now that Roy, if he did win, it would be due to natural advantages like speed and size, not technical ones, which he doesn't have
I don't only look at the speed stuff though, lots of fighters with superior technical skills have defeated faster fighters, like Duran against Leonard.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the styles aspect. Personally I'd go with Gavilan and Turpin fighting the best versions of Robinson without any handicap. Turpin came forward but he boxed Robinson. I even wonder if Lamotta's win against a 145lb Robinson was even legit, he seemed to get some dodgy decisions and it was easier to rip off black fighters in these days. Only speculation on my part.
That's a good point. :good
I think Robinson was 37 against Fullmer and Basilio and had lost to gatekeepers around this time. He clearly wasn't the same fighter.
Ok, we kinda covered this above though.
Sorry my post is massive and I may have repeated myself mate. This just took an hour :lol:
Good post by yourself by the way. :good
