# Who is the best defensive boxer in boxing history?

> Hitting is the easy half of boxing. These are the fighters who solved the other one.

*By YPB Team · Published September 20, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/who-is-the-best-defensive-boxer-in-boxing-history*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Floyd Mayweather** — score 1000/1000
   Built fifty wins on the shoulder roll and finished with barely a mark on him.
2. **Winky Wright** — score 574/1000
   The high guard that Felix Trinidad and Shane Mosley could not get through.
3. **James Toney** — score 558/1000
   Carried the shoulder roll up four weight divisions across twenty years.
4. **Guillermo Rigondeaux** — score 447/1000
   Two-time Olympic champion whose defence made him almost impossible to book.
5. **Sugar Ray Robinson** — score 447/1000
   The complete fighter, and the defensive model everyone after him copied.
6. **Nicolino Locche** — score 446/1000
   Nicknamed The Untouchable for fighting entire rounds with his hands down.
7. **Ezzard Charles** — score 446/1000
   A light heavyweight technician who beat heavyweights by never being where they punched.
8. **Andre Ward** — score 378/1000
   Controlled distance so precisely that opponents ran out of ideas by the middle rounds.
9. **Willie Pep** — score 378/1000
   Reputed to have won a round without throwing a punch.
10. **Pernell Whitaker** — score 298/1000
   Made world-class opponents miss so badly that judges struggled to score the rounds.
11. **Vasiliy Lomachenko** — score 298/1000
   Steps to the side of opponents until they lose track of where he is.
12. **Bernard Hopkins** — score 203/1000
   Used range, timing and forty-nine years of ring craft to stay unhittable.
13. **Muhammad Ali** — score 0/1000
   Avoided punches by leaning back from them, which no trainer recommends and only he survived.
14. **Wilfred Benitez** — score 0/1000
   Won a world title at 17 on reflexes alone.

Tags: sports, boxing, all time, boxers