I Should Have Trained Tommy Loughran

Nicely stated. Even monsters like Harada, Duran and Canto had to flick their jabs out as you describe. Pawing is only bad when you don't have a solid jab to back it up.

 

Even in recent years, Hopkins, widely lauded for his form and technique married with his intelligence, was great at half-pawing with his jab, dropping it down/short and then firing in overhand rights and/or falling in close to mug and rough house less experienced fighters. It worked nearly every time for him.

 

That's not true.

 

If you read up on Tommy Loughran, he had a lot of trouble with his hands. He said that he was willing to throw a hard right hand because if he injured the hand, he was confident that he could win a fight with his jab, his legs, and his brains.
He didn't throw hard left hooks because he couldn't afford to risk damaging his left hand.

 

Its very strange to hear some criticize the jab of a fighter who had one of the best jabs in history. Loughrans entire game was built around his jab. In his career he managed to beat Greb, Mickey Walker, Mike McTigue, Jeff Smith, Johnny Wilson, George Carpentier, Young Stribling, Jimmy Slattery, Pete Latzo, James Braddock, Jack Sharkey, and Max Baer and fought on even terms with Tunney and Jack Delaney. All champions or hall of famers and that list doesnt even include the dozens of contenders he beat from MW to HW. Thats almost a ridiculously impressive list and it was compiled primarily off Loughrans use of the jab. Again, criticizing the jab that produced those results seems... odd. Pretending you could teach that guy anything about the use of the jab is laughable. I think its safe to say a master of the jab like Loughran forgot more than most fighters ever learn about jabbing.

 

Loughran vs Braddock is on YouTube. He snaps Braddock's head with left hooks and jabs several times. But I can only lead a horse to water.

 

Watch Braddock fight then...