The all things technical thread.

Cheers for that, Mand. (Btw, when do i start calling you 'Skills'?). Lol.

I've heard Manny talk about the improvements he's had to make with Wlad. He talked about how he had to work and work on making Wlad comfortable in the ring. Wlad use to do a lot of excercises without boxing being in them, He wasn't into actually boxing as part of excercises. He was big on the conditioning aspects but not the boxing aspects. He had to do a lot of repetitive work with him for hours on end. I think he's done a great job with him.

You can tell that Wlad is really not born to do this. He's just not natural. He flinches a lot and as you say pulls his head back at times. Manny has got the best out of him and manufactured things that protect his frailties. That dear in headlights look still comes out in Wlad from time to time. What was it Jay Z said? You are who you are playa, LOL!

 

Cheers, Ero. :thumbsup

He did that because there would've been more chance of the ref calling him up on the blinding and then hitting. So he basically hooked off it and it was also much quicker and required less motion to do so with the left.

The fighter who hits opponents the most on the blindside of the ref and knows how to do it so well is Bernard Hopkins. He'll hit guys on the hips in clinches where refs can't see. Ward is not quite Hopkins yet in terms of tricks of the trade, but he's getting there.

 

Wlad the way he's developed kind of reminds me of Monzon a little now (and that's a great compliment to Wlad). Monzon had a lot more moxie though. As you say though horrific era he's in.

 

I really like fighters who are deceptive because for the most part it means their intangibles are off the charts and it makes it hard to judge their rhyhtm. Going back to Monzon he's probabily the best example of a fighter being deceptive and MUCH better than he looks. If someone is watching Monzon for the first time they could be forgiven for thinking "what's the fuss all about". Could even call him 'limited' or looking 'ordinary' if one didn't know better. But he's a classic example of a fighter not neccesarily having to look aesthetically pleasing or have any 'special effects' to become great and to be super effective. If you they thrive on the basics and you have something special inside.

Monzon technically controlled range really well and set up his punches. But the best part about him was his temperament. Just awesome mentality and killer instinct. That moxie that you either have or don't. He never allowed his opponents to gain confidence because he was so on point and never flustered.

I have a penchant for movie analogies. There is a film in which a young man has an imaginary friend who is a super spy called Jack. He gets this imaginary friend from his love of role playing games. Someone one day gets murdered and the young man is witness to it all. Before the person who gets killed dies he gives the young man a game called 'Cloak and Dagger'.

No one believes him when he tells everyone what happened because all the evidence is gone from the scene. All sorts of things start happening to this young man and it soon becomes clear that someone is trying to get him. And the only person who can save him is that imaginary friend, Jack. All these things happening to him seem like a fantasy but it's real in his mind and just hidden and surreptitiously on going. That's Carlos Monzon's work. Cloak and Dagger.

 

Yep. But he could've hit him with anything at that point. Froch was pretty much blinded and didn't know what to expect and so open for any shot.

 

I think it sums up his life, career and fight game pretty well.

 

You have to learn to read between the lines with stuff like that. lol