Swarmers vs. Sluggers

The common and often repeated view in boxing is that swarmers beat boxers, boxers beat sluggers and sluggers beat swarmers. There are many examples of this. However it doesn't always work this way. A few examples of swarmers beating sluggers are:

Roberto Duran-Pipino Cuevas
Roberto Duran-Iran Barkley
Dempsey-Firpo
Chavez-Rosario

My question is it seems swarmers who can adapt their style or have other tools such as counterpunching do very well, whereas those who are one dimensional like Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, get took.


Any thoughts?

I dont think it is a case by case 100 percent true statement but its pretty true

However there are rare occurences

Joe Frazier (swarmer) getting the living shit beat out of him by Foreman (true slugger at the time)

Henry Armstrong (swarmer) beating everyone, Barney Ross (boxer-puncher), Lew Tender (boxer)

Mayweather hasnt lost yet although the Castillo fight was close

I would classify Dempsey as a slugger/swarmer Firpo a pure slugger (man that fight was fucking awesome)

Duran was just a bad ass, but look at him vs Thomas Hearns, and how the boxer-pucher knocked the shit out of him

also Frazier gets sadly tagged as a no defense swarmer which isnt true

He has the highest duck/slip rate of any heavyweight champion

The best swarmers are guys who could also be sluggers..its just that they are good enough...in good enough shape..and can move enough that they are swarmers first. dempsey for example had a pretty good one punch shot..and he would have been a top 20 heavyweight even if his feet had been in cement and he could have only thrown 30 punches a round.

A guy like Rocky Marciano while not the biggest one punch guy was also a hybrid.....Tyson at his very very best could be a swarmer...but usually he was more of a skilled slugger.