Difference between an infighter, swarmer, and pressure fighter?

Pressure fighter and swarmer might be the same thing. I don't really like the term "swarmer". Sounds like bees to me.

Infighting is fighting at close quarters, close enough that they are touching one another.

 

A "swarmer" sets the pace. He leads off punching his way in. He is a two handed high work rate come forward guy. A grinder who uses his pace.

An "infighter" doesn’t fight at a higher pace. He’s a mauler who looks to fight within a clinch, stays close, leans on and looks to get his hands free on a clench. Its about finding that distance where the other guy is smothered, cant get his hands free but you can.

A pressure fighter is always edging in and looking to corner you. He’s not always punching his way in but he is backing you up with feints and making an opening. You make three steps to his one staying away. Often a presure fighter counters his way in as aposed to slugging his way in.

The difference between a swarmer and pressure fighters is pace but often a good aggressive fighter will alternate between swarming, infighting and presure fighting.

 

I find separation of styles comes down to mannerisms a lot of the time, or small nuances.

I mean, both Joe Frazier and Rocky Marciano are tagged as pressure fighters but there are initially small contrasts that differentiate greatly. Frazier was left hook dominant and forwardly balanced with regular, constant bobbing. Marciano shuffled forward, holding his centre of gravity at the rear, and his head movement was less automatic. As a general pattern, Frazier was rhythmic, paced, and bent forwards at the waist to avoid punches, setting up classic-looking hooks to both body and head. As a rule, Marciano fought more spontaneously, and leaned backwards into a defensive crouch that transitioned into a weave to get inside; even then, any left handed punch was a 'worker', setting himself up for another right hand.

I don't know if I could label them as anything other than pressure fighters, or in other words, an advancing fighter with a primary intention of wearing down the opponent.

In my opinion, it comes down to this:

- Boxer-mover (retreating, passive)
- Boxer-puncher (neutral, versatile)
- Swarmer (advancing, active)
- Slugger (advancing, explosive)

A boxer can be crude or technical in any class, and it may be common for a fighter to transition between two or even all of them depending on a variety of factors.

 

I was wondering about this too. How about some examples of fighters of each style mentioned?

 

For me personally, IN FIGHTING is not used in the context today as it once was. Infighting for me is a lost are in boxing that I haven't seen like the 50's or 60's. People call Tyson an infighter - he definetly was not! Did you ever see him work in the clinch or hurt a dude inside? Never he was easy to tie up and was useless in the clinch. In-fighting is roughing people up in the clinches, being able to work inside. Actually Duran was great at it, watch him against Moore and Leonard (first fight) and he could work beautifully at head-on-head range and even when tied up. But really it's a dying art, Basilio and LaMotta were great infghters.

In general power punchers don't like to fight inside. They can't swing there shots and get full power on it if they do.

Swarming is hard to say. It's throwing a lot of punches. I think Aaon Pryor was a swarmer, as was Harry Greb. Very similar to pressure fighter. I think 'swarming' is like when Marciano would tee off and just thrown non-stop for 30-60sec straight, its not really a style but a technique.

A pressure fighter is simply a boxer who comes forward and applies LOTS OF PRESSURE on their opponent. e.g. Frazier, Marciano, Paul Williams or Antonio Margarito are modern examples.

 

Andrea Ward's a terrific infighter. Hatton comes to mind first as a swarmer, 'n Powal Wolak as a pressure fighter

 

My personal definitions:

Infighter: Some that is always trying to take the fight to the inside, then stay there and go to war. They may have good power or none, they may throw 20 punches a round or 60, the point is that they always want to fight it out up close and in the trenches and specialize in close range combat. Many also specialize in fighting rough and dirty, like a head that is constantly in the other guy's face, holding and hitting, etc.

For a recent example, see Wolak from the first Rodriguez-Wolak fight:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Wvt3GyVcA[/ame]

Swarmer: Someone who tries to overwhelm with activity. These are the guys that come at you throwing 100 punches a round with little to no let up. They have endless stamina, and with the exception of some of the best ones, many have no defense except the fact that their opponent is too busy and overwhelmed to respond effectively. Examples I tend to think of fitting into this category: Paul Williams, Antonio Margarito, the young Manny Pacquiao, etc.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oxT_1QWhFg&feature=relmfu[/ame]

Pressure: Pressure fighters break their opponent by hunting them down and forcing them on defense constantly. Pressure fighters stay close (although not always chest to chest) and keep the tempo going higher than the other guy can sustain it. If, for example, they're fighting an outfighter/boxer, a pressure fighter keeps cutting off the ring, so the outboxer can't get away just by moving and has to constantly throw and engage in order to keep from getting pounded on. Both doing that and being the mover burns up stamina and, when a fight isn't going the boxer's way, takes a mental toll as well.

(There used to be a short youtube clip that beautifully demonstrated my definition of a pressure fighter. It was taken from an overhead camera in Ali-Frazier I, and in it Ali tried to move away from Frazier by circling, but no matter which way Ali moved or how he tried to switch directions, Frazier was never more than a foot away from him, so Ali had to constantly be defending himself and watching for the attack from Frazier.)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ9CRQ4BGRw[/ame]

Now 2 things should be obvious, first that these are just my personal opinions and definitions, and second, that there's a lot of room for overlap. For example, a swarmer is applying their own kind of pressure with their constant activity and aggressiveness, but not every pressure fighter is a swarmer. Chavez Sr. relies on pressuring his opponents, but he never came forward recklessly, and always picked his punches carefully and economically unless he had the other guy hurt and in trouble.

It's also true that some fighters will switch between different approaches as the situation calls for. To use the example of Chavez Sr again, when fighting an outboxer he would take a pressure approach. When fighting someone who wanted to fight him up close, then he would use the infighter approach, and there were few better at it in the history of the sport.

 

A swarmer would be a fighter like Ricardo Mayorga. Not really accurate but very busy; looking to swarm punches in an opponents direction.

An infighter would probably be a fighter who's only effective up close and inside. Perhaps, Joe Frazier?

A pressure fighter would be someone like Julio Cesar Chavez.....coming forward and breaking an opponent down on the outside, before getting inside.

 

Yeah, a lot people assume that Tyson was an infighter because of his body type and his short reach, but even at his peak he was lazy on the inside. He would let other people clinch him, tie him up, or punch freely on the inside, often without doing much back.

He would occasionally get busy and be effective on the inside, but mostly his strength was at mid-range and at the start of what could be considered close range. When it came to fighting someone nose to nose, Tyson was not in his comfort zone.

You want to see an example of doing infighting right, watch Chavez-Rosario or middleweight fights from the 50 & 60s.

 

Great input guys, really made things clearer. Although I'm curious about how would you categorize James Toney? Some say he's a counterpuncher yet he often fights in the inside, staying close but not swarming or putting pressure, he counters.

 

JT was a rare hybrid, N. Brilliant counter puncher/infighter

 

infighter McCallum, swarmer Roldan and pressure Iran Barkley at times.

 

Tyson - as with most aggressive punchers - was dangerous coming at you...however when he got there, and if he hadn't landing coming in, he was lost. He'd have to create range again and then try coming in swinging. Watch the Bonecrusher Smith fight, where Tyson was just tied up and up over and over again. Frazier and Marciano would have torn smith apart, both much better in-fighters than Tyson, Dempsey included.

 

Much has already been said but I will give my thoughts anyway.

A boxer who excels in the art of infighting/inside fighting is an infighter. Even a counter-puncher such as Toney can be classified as an infighter, as can be Jake LaMotta, despite the obvious stylistical differences between the two.

A swarmer overwhelms his opponent with sheer workrate, high activity and pressure. The swarmer sets a pace that he feels his opponent cannot keep up with and intends to win through his advantages in stamina, toughness and determination. We have seen many examples of swarmers in recent times (Williams, Margarito as mentioned previously) as physical advantages become increasingly important over technical skill.

A pressure fighter is not necessarily a swarmer. A clever pressure fighter can be aggressive without "resorting" to throwing a high volume of punches in order to tire out his opponent.

Dick Tiger would've never broken any CompuBox records, but he put the pressure on his opponent constantly by pressing forward with slow steps, feinting and keeping his opponent continually aware of a potential attack coming their way. It took a mental toll along with a physical one as the opponent spent the whole fight trying to figure out Tiger's next move while he kept advancing and the opponent retreating (otherwise they were in for a beating).