Which of these fighters hold/held their hands the lowest?

Tyson Fury

 

Joe Louis had a brilliant stance, his hands weren`t too low at all he wa very hard to hit and blocked a lot of shots along with skipping away, don`t know why he`s on this list. Marciano used to crouch putting his right glove to the left side of his chin to protect from right hands.

 

Carl Froch
Roy Jones

 

Can you direct us to evidence of these criticisms from around 2002-2007?

Most sensible observers would critique defensive hand positioning situationally. Keeping one's hands low is risky, and therefore obviously a potential defensive liability that other fighters may be able to exploit. However, fighters who have either the reflexes to avoid punches & counter effectively, or the ability to maintain distance and stay outside of their opponents' punching range can mitigate that risk effectively.

 

Absolutely. Lowest guard I have seen in relative sense. However, in absolute terms it is fairly high because he is 6'9". Which is why is has a low guard, he's mostly fighting people 6" shorter than him.

John brown had a high guard for converse reasons.

 

Yes that's right ,it was why Vitali Klitschko could get away with it.

 

In Jeffries case his lack of defence was pretty conclusive, a 3 times broken nose ,scar tissue above and below both eyes and a cauliflower ear after just 22 fights, indicate holes in your defence wouldn't you say?

If you want an old time poster boy for low hands Jimmy Slattery is your man.
More modern? Kirkland Laing whom I saw Colin Jones ko twice because after outboxing Jones he got too complacent and paid the price.

 

If you don't accept I'm correct, make a counter argument .I wont hold my breath!

 

Yeah, this is a very straight forward point that I've made several times, but it just doesn't get through.

If Tyson Fury was only 6 foot and fought that way against Wlad, Wlad would have turned his face into minced meat.

Same with Wlad and Vitaly. Their leaning back defence would be much less effective if they were, say, Byrd's size.

Boxing fundamentals are taught on the premise that you don't necessarily have physical advantages in size and/or speed over your opponents. If you don't have lightning quick feet and reflexes like Jones or can't keep your opponents at bay with long powerful straight punches like Wlad, it is very useful just to automatically have your hands in position to protect you.

It's an extremely simple proposition, really.

 

It's not a "stigma"--it's merely recognition of the well-known fact that having low hands is a potentially serious defensive liability because it tends to hinder fighters in their efforts to avoid being punched in the face. Some guys get away with it (although it eventually catches up to people more often than not), but there is a reason why trainers have reached a consensus about the superiority of high guard hand positions.

In my view, it was probably far less of a liability way back when, when a boxer's opponents more often led with one power punch at a time before falling into clinches or inside fighting positions. It's a far greater potential liability when it comes to dealing with the constant jabbing and more regular combination punching that are more prevalent in modern boxing. So the fact that a fighter from the turn of the twentieth century was able to use it against the boxers of his day doesn't mean that he would likely be able to pull it off against modern opponents.