Who do toy think displays the best pure boxing in MMA? Max Holloway has nice hands and movement
Hey, sorry for the really late reply -- I've been sick the last couple of days and haven't been online much. That is SUCH a difficult question, and one that I have thought about in the past but not much recently. It is sooo difficult to quantify, but I do love questions like these.
Holloway for sure is a good pick. Conor McGregor is another pretty obvious one, as much as some people will hate on this. He is one of the very best in MMA at using Southpaw to his advantages, and does some small things really effective like lead hand-fighting, getting the outside dominant angle to shoot that straight left inside, and then just the mechanics of that left hand itself are pretty impressive for MMA. He also has some nasty uppercuts and great head movement. His deficiencies are in his lack of a jab and his over-reliance on the left.
Both the Diaz brothers, obviously. Nate has a really, really underrated right lead hook that he uses as a counter to interrupt the rhythm and timing of his opponents. Also has a solid 1-2 that he relies on quite a bit. Perhaps most impressive is his ability to anticipate punches and roll with them. He pulled all three of these things off regularly in his fight with Conor. Nick, on the other hand, is more varied as a puncher. His ability to punch to the body and level change with punches from a variety of angles makes him really hard to deal with.
Anderson Silva has criminally underrated boxing. Everyone always wants to talk about his Muay Thai, which is beyond impressive, but he is really good with his hands as a counter fighter. His slip and pull counters are maybe the best ever in MMA. His skills in this area were demonstrated pretty well in that sparring video of him at Wild Card that was floating around years ago.
Gustaffson has a nice smoothness to his punches, and great boxing footwork. Mousasi is a very even, balanced puncher with a great jab. Speaking of jabs, obviously Rory McDonald and GSP have a very special jab for MMA. Rory is a really talented boxer when he lets his hands go -- his ability to mix it up head-to-body up against the fence like he did against Woodley and Penn is phenomenal. GSP is more limited as a boxer: his jab is probably the best ever in MMA, and he has a good follow-up straight right, and his master of distance and range is second to none. But his ability to throw varied combinations, i.e hooks, uppercuts, or any type of non-linear punch is almost non-existent. His body type/economy of movement just does not seem to be well-suited towards these type of attacks, and I think that is actually one of his biggest weaknesses in what is otherwise almost a perfect fighter.
Bobby Green's boxing looked pretty good until recently: he is one of the only guys I have ever seen really implement Philly Shell with any degree of success in MMA. K.J Noons' ability to body punch once upon a time was legendary. Rampage back when he was under Juanito Ibarra was pretty damn good. His commitment to changing levels to body punch and then exploding back up with that left hook was great. And he had really good head movement back then too.
Joe Duffy has some hands on him. JDS, too. Holm is kind of a given. Prime BJ Penn undoubtedly had some of the best hands that we've ever seen in the UFC. Maybe Tumenov is up there? Also, once upon a time I thought Chris Weidman was going to be on this list because of his amazing development in his striking IQ (the decision to double up on the right hand in the form of the back fist to counter Anderson's head movement) and his incredible mastery of distance, but he seems to have regressed as of late.
I don't know. Sorry for the FRAT. I love this question! For me, MMA fighters show bits and pieces of great boxing, but rarely have the whole package. As you would of course expect -- they have A TON to worry about in terms of overall skills.
