Fastest handspeed.

[Anomalocaris]

Just off the top of my head.

Pep.
Louis.
Robinson.
Patterson.
Ali.
Leonard.
Hearns.
Camacho.
Tyson.
Taylor.
Whitaker.
Jones Junior.
Pacman.
Mayweather.

[Mr Mitts]

What the hell is Louis doing on a fast hands thread for Chrissakes.

[Anomalocaris]

His combinations.

[Mr Mitts]

Louis had great combinations and they were fairly fast, but mostly just clean with good aim. He is way out sped by every other man on your list. He looks really out of place. Dozens and dozens of fighters have been faster than ol' Joe.

Howard Davis, a gold Olympian who didn't make it very far in the pros, was really fast. There was nothing slow about a prime Oscar either.

Now I am going to get downright sacrilegious and remove Robinson too. Why? The Robinson we got to see on film was not in his prime, when he was a middleweight, so we don't know how fast he was as a lightweight and welterweight. But from what we are able to see he was not as fast as Jones, Pep, Mayweather, or Leonard e.g.

One weird thing we are doing here is matching featherweights with heavyweights for hand speed. Only P4P speed makes any sense in this context.

Pep, Ali, Leonard, Jones and Mayweather are the finalists for me, with Pep coming out on top ahead of Jones. But after all the compensating for weight, who knows?

[Anomalocaris]

Louis had great combinations and they were fairly fast, but mostly just clean with good aim. He is way out sped by every other man on your list. He looks really out of place. Dozens and dozens of fighters have been faster than ol' Joe.

Howard Davis, a gold Olympian who didn't make it very far in the pros, was really fast. There was nothing slow about a prime Oscar either.

Now I am going to get downright sacrilegious and remove Robinson too. Why? The Robinson we got to see on film was not in his prime, when he was a middleweight, so we don't know how fast he was as a lightweight and welterweight. But from what we are able to see he was not as fast as Jones, Pep, Mayweather, or Leonard e.g.

One weird thing we are doing here is matching featherweights with heavyweights for hand speed. Only P4P speed makes any sense in this context.

Pep, Ali, Leonard, Jones and Mayweather are the finalists for me, with Pep coming out on top ahead of Jones. But after all the compensating for weight, who knows?

Yes, I think I was probably wrong because it was just off the top of my head,.

Joe had fast hands for a heavy but not lightening like the others.

It was a PFP list, obviously heavies are not as fast as the lighter men.

[Mr Mitts]

Yes, I think I was probably wrong because it was just off the top of my head,.

Joe had fast hands for a heavy but not lightening like the others.

It was a PFP list, obviously heavies are not as fast as the lighter men.

Louis goes down as one of the more effective punchers ever. Very efficient.

[The D3vil]

P4P is Roy Jones Jr.

[Anomalocaris]

P4P is Roy Jones Jr.

I agree.

[DeeMoney]

This is an interesting topic to me, partly because it can be very hard to measure and lead to a lot of interesting discussions. For one part, I don't think there needs to be a caveat for P4P. Most fighters train properly and end up in the weight class where they should be based on their natural body frame; this means that most fighters will probably have roughly the same body fat percentage and roughly the same lean muscle mass percentage. Since it is these muscles that drive speed, and in this case hand speed, the difference in mass between say a 130 pounder and 175 pounder shouldn't make the 175lber necessarily slower (all things being equal). If this were true, olympic sprinters wouldn't carry any muscle mass on their legs because it would make them slower.

That being written, I think smaller fighters are capable of throwing punches faster because in general, their arms are shorter. Shorter arms means that the punch has less distance to travel to be completed. So while their hands aren't necessarily moving faster, the punch needs to travel a shorter distance, ergo the time to complete it is less. This was an advantage that Tyson had. In addition to being naturally fast his arms were shorter than many (if nor all?) opponents, so he was able to complete his punches more quickly. Were they fast, yes, but they also had to travel a shorter distance.

Another interesting point is how much force a given fighter is trying to put on their punch. The recent thread about Harold Johnson vs Bob Foster helps show this, both Foster and Johnson used their jabs a lot, but in completely different ways. Foster threw that long powerful jab with more force, to keep you away but to also cause damage- his jab was not just a tap. Conversely, Johnson threw quick flicking jabs to help open up his opponent and work his way in. This leads me to wonder if some fighters hands could be faster, if they tried to focus on being quicker and just touching with a given punch, so as to return to a position to throw another (quick combos like Lomachenko).

All that rambling I'll say: 1-RJJ, 2-Tyson, 3- Pacquiao, 4- Ali, 5- Meldrick Taylor

[QueensburyRules]

This is an interesting topic to me, partly because it can be very hard to measure and lead to a lot of interesting discussions. For one part, I don't think there needs to be a caveat for P4P. Most fighters train properly and end up in the weight class where they should be based on their natural body frame; this means that most fighters will probably have roughly the same body fat percentage and roughly the same lean muscle mass percentage. Since it is these muscles that drive speed, and in this case hand speed, the difference in mass between say a 130 pounder and 175 pounder shouldn't make the 175lber necessarily slower (all things being equal). If this were true, olympic sprinters wouldn't carry any muscle mass on their legs because it would make them slower.

That being written, I think smaller fighters are capable of throwing punches faster because in general, their arms are shorter. Shorter arms means that the punch has less distance to travel to be completed. So while their hands aren't necessarily moving faster, the punch needs to travel a shorter distance, ergo the time to complete it is less. This was an advantage that Tyson had. In addition to being naturally fast his arms were shorter than many (if nor all?) opponents, so he was able to complete his punches more quickly. Were they fast, yes, but they also had to travel a shorter distance.

Another interesting point is how much force a given fighter is trying to put on their punch. The recent thread about Harold Johnson vs Bob Foster helps show this, both Foster and Johnson used their jabs a lot, but in completely different ways. Foster threw that long powerful jab with more force, to keep you away but to also cause damage- his jab was not just a tap. Conversely, Johnson threw quick flicking jabs to help open up his opponent and work his way in. This leads me to wonder if some fighters hands could be faster, if they tried to focus on being quicker and just touching with a given punch, so as to return to a position to throw another (quick combos like Lomachenko).

All that rambling I'll say: 1-RJJ, 2-Tyson, 3- Pacquiao, 4- Ali, 5- Meldrick Taylor

- - Mike also had to step closer to be in that range. It was the combination of speedy well educated footwork and head movement that got the job done so dramatically that even the ol'timers were saying he was the greatest ever.

Same deal with Pac.