I've just recently been watching some Mike Mccallum footage, and his body punches were nothing short of brilliant, without a doubt the best body puncher I've seen. My question is, what separated Mike from the rest? Why were his body punches so vicious? It's something that I can't quite put a finger on. His style is amazing and a wonder to watch. What makes a good body puncher?
He wasn't really a vicious body puncher, not to the extent his reputation suggests, anyway. What he was was a very educated, dedicated body puncher. He never, ever neglected it.
He always looked for those opportunities. His most common counter when slipping a punch was a left uppercut/hook to the body. It was a more natural part of his game than it is for most fighters.
He thought the body was an easier target and due to his work ethic in the ring he could work the body a bit to set up scoring punches to the head. You can't be a good body puncher if you only throw a handful of punches to the body per round, you really have to dedicate yourself for it to wear the opponent down. In McCallum's case the body punching had done its job when the opponent would keep guessing whether he would throw to the body or the head. He did not necessarily look for a stoppage, it was a way for him to out-think and outbox the opponent. This was a very serviceable uppercut to the body by McCallum though: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kbKe9cvEBI[/ame] 3:55 One of the few fighters who would actually counter to the body consistently.
Yes, he was. Ask anyone who fought him. Immediately after the fight, like any boxer, they will deny that they even felt the body punches. It's a pride thing -- hardly anyone admits to being hurt to the body. Talk to them a few years later and you'll get a pretty good idea of what it was like -- how they felt sapped as the fight went on from the withering body attack. One thing that made him such a great body puncher was accuracy -- he had a knack for finding the same debilitating spot over and over and over, making his shots more and more effective over the course of the fight. Another thing was that unlike most effective body punches, McCallum didn't reserve his body shots to when he was on the inside. He picked people apart with body shots from afar and as counters from the outside.
Yes, that's all because he was very consistent with his body attack. Of course you're going to feel the effects of constant body blows over the course of an entire fight, but he rarely ever hurt a fighter with single shots to the body, and never stopped anyone with body blows to my recollection.
Randall Yonker was about the only fighter who visibly wilted under McCallum's body attack, which was more consistent and vicious than in most of his other fights because of Yonker's lack of any defense against it. It's correct that he was never a devastating body puncher. You could make the argument that outside of the Curry KO he wasn't a big puncher at all, despite his knockout record. He was just extremely effective at wearing opponents down.
