How fast?

BrianD3

I am not an expert on boxing but do enjoy watching it and enjoy training with a heavy bag. Just looking at recent fights it seems that Amir Khan has very fast hand speed. Is this correct or is it an illusion? What other boxers are renowned for having faster than average hands.?

Also does anyone know of any stats on how long it takes a typical boxer to throw a punch, how many good punches can be thrown in a second etc. Obviously I'm talking about punches where good technique is used and which have some power and body behind them. In other words not just flailing arms around with your body off balance and your chin up in the air etc.

I personally find that I can hit the heavy bag with a jab-right-lefthook-right-lefthook combo in about 0.9 seconds. Haven't a clue whethehr this is good bad or indifferent.

Big Ears

Yes Amir Kahn has extremely fast hands it is one of his biggest attributes .

Floyd Mayweather , Ivan Calderon and Roy Jones Jnr (in his prime , but he's still pretty damn quick) are all incredibly quick punchers .

This may be just a rumour but I have heard Roy Jones Jnr was able to throw 4 proper consecutive left handed punches in a little over a second while in his prime .

You have fairly quick hands .

akindoc

khan is fast i have to say.

other fast fighters include

roy jones
mayweather
Judah
Mosley (in prime)
Ali
TYSON (very fast in his prime with extreme power also)

and many more.

GOAT_Ali

Khan is greasy fast and hard....Ali p4p the fastest punching fighter ever.
Ray Leonard and Macho Camacho were two very fast punchers, Robinson as well.....

megadodge

Surprised nobody mentioned Meldrick Taylor.
Probably faster than any boxer I've seen.

Big Ears

megadodge wrote:

Surprised nobody mentioned Meldrick Taylor.
Probably faster than any boxer I've seen.

I was going to mention him after I saw GOAT_Ali's (rediculous) post that Ali is the quickest fighter p4p ever , Taylor's combinations were simply incredible .

walshb

Well big ears it is you I'm afraid to say is ridiculous. Most real fight fans and experts in the Pro game thru history have all said at one stage or another that Ali or Clay was blindingly fast and as a fact it was shown that he threw his jab faster than Ray Robinson...this was actually proved by the great Jimmy Jacobs. To not consider a peak Clay as p4p one of the fastest fighters ever shows your lack of boxing knowledge.

Clay's combinations were absolute lightning and he also had the best footwork of any fighter thru history.......

Big Ears

There's a difference between one of the best and the best , I never said he wasn't one of the quickest but he's not the quickest ever .

walshb

So Big Ears you are sitting on the fence......I say he was the quickest P4P, I make no apology for that and I backed it up with Jacobs timing experiment of the two men. And I'm sure a hell of a lot of fight fans and historians would tend to agree also....So to say the GOAT_Ali post was ridiculous is not true...

Big Ears

walshb wrote:

So Big Ears you are sitting on the fence......I say he was the quickest P4P, I make no apology for that and I backed it up with Jacobs timing experiment of the two men. And I'm sure a hell of a lot of fight fans and historians would tend to agree also....So to say the GOAT_Ali post was ridiculous is not true...

I suppose the use of the word rediculous was an exageration . But I think your point about Jacobs timing is an interesting one that opens up this conversation .
Ali threw a quicker jab than SRR but what about hooks , straights , crosses , uppercuts , overhand punches and combinations .

Meldrick Taylor was the quickest combination puncher ever I beleive , but he didn't have the quickest straight .

I suppose the fastest fighter would have to have the highest average speed of all the punches combined .

walshb

Mate, if you really study Clay/Ali in his prime against Terell or Cleveland Williams, he threw blistering combos going forward, standing still, doing the Shuffle and on the retreat. Also these shots had venom in them. Ali was an underrated puncher. Taylor's shots don't come close, powder puff shots. I cannot say that Ali was the fastest, I don't think anybody can definitely determine this, but on the P4P basis he was the fastest theoretically....15+ stones remember at 6ft 3inches....he shouldn't even be considered as one of the fastest with those measurements, but he was and still IS!!!!

megadodge

As you said it's hard for anyone to categorically say 'x' is definitely faster,
but I personally don't think Ali (straight up) was as fast as Taylor or even Roy Jones for that matter.
You did mention p4p though and that got me thinking how do you measure speed on a p4p basis ?
At least with punching power you can see the effect and result of punches of men the same size on each other.
It's a tricky one, but I'm sure with modern technology there is some machine capable of measuring the speed straight up which could be used with videos etc.