Favourite Technique Wells?

Take a look at Curtis Cokes. He loved to jab slightly outside his opponents face to herd them into his right. It's pretty basic as far as missed jabs go but it worked well for him.

 

Nah you're not seeing things, you're right on the money. There's some extremely clear footage of Robinson throwing these noncommittal jabs on the double-end bag, and you can almost feel the "lack of effort". The double-end bag is the second most unstable of all training bags and it's barely moving here. I've no doubt in my mind Robinson deliberately practised this sort of stuff.

https://mdc-wolfson-streaming.s3.amazonaws.com/streaming1/WC04764.mp4

Go to like, 4:50 in. It's got some rare Basilio training footage if you're into that as well. The footage is very sexy, you can really feel the presence and gravity behind the moves of these old fighters. Even the best pre 60s fight film doesn't quite capture that element the way modern cameras do.

 

Absolutely. This is why I wish fighters from that era had extended footage, so you can see the sort of stuff they learned while fighting world class opposition and see them grow. Tons of rounds and tons of rematches.

The entire murderer's row + Archie Moore would be the pinnacle of it, or just about. It'd be capable of feeding me and my descendants until the abolition of Boxing.

 

Following on from Macca's post-of-the-year breakdown on Robbi and LaMotta - it made me think.

The exact same principle is employed by Robbi in the famous KO of Fullmer. It's my favourite punch captured on film, but the fascinating part is the skill and delayed gratification employed by Robbi.

Macca's post dismantles the myth that Robbi was just relying on natural athletic gifts, revealing the deep, high-IQ spatial experiments he was actually running inside the ring.

To build on that point: Robbi used the exact same optical deception, footwork, and bodywork to set up the Fullmer knockout. People look at that single-punch KO and think Robbi just knocked him out going backwards. That's a simplified recount of what was actually a long, deliberate, hypnotic trap.

Here’s how Robinson actually executed it:

The visual lie and the body bait
Fullmer was a highly-skilled, brutal, crouching swarmer who relied on tracking the lead shoulder to anticipate the jab, slip inside, and smother.
In the early rounds, Robbi fed Fullmer a specific lead-shoulder tell - the exact same non-committal, probing jab highlighted against LaMotta. However, Robbi didn't just use it to measure distance; he used that false jab to open up the long right hand to the body.

Backwards footwork as a distance marker
While establishing this pattern, Robbi was deliberately circling and retreating, falsely ceding ground. This took the sting off Fullmer’s rushes, but more importantly, it established a false distance marker. Fullmer felt in total control, pushing the pace, convinced it was safe to keep barreling forward because Robbi supposedly couldn't generate finishing power moving backward.
Right before the knockout, Robbi lands a long right hand to the body. He circles back, maintains the retreat, and then throws that right hand to the body again.

Stopping on a dime: The biomechanical hack
This is where Robbi’s spatial genius comes together in Round 5.
Having just been conditioned by two right hands to the body while tracking a retreating fighter, Fullmer lunges in again. As Robbi shifts his lead shoulder, Fullmer instinctively drops his left hand, anticipating a third right hand to the body.
However, right as Fullmer commits his weight forward with his guard down, Robinson stops on a dime. Instead of continuing the retreat, Robbi plants his back foot, shifts his weight forward into the canvas, and pivots. He turns the shoulder over, changing the trajectory into a short, arching, brutal left hook.
Fullmer didn't excessively dip into the punch; Robbi deliberately baited him into dropping his hands with body shots, then planted his feet to deliver a maximum-leverage hook right as Fullmer stepped forward, moving his head into the sweet spot. Fullmer never saw it coming because until the final split second, every optical cue told him he was chasing a retreating fighter going back to the body.

As Macca pointed out, Robbi didn't just throw punches to land them; he threw them to miscalibrate his opponent’s internal radar. Whether it was using a shortened jab to draw LaMotta into range for a brutal right hand, or using retreating footwork and bodyshot bait to blindside Fullmer, Robbi was constantly playing chess with his opponent's spatial awareness, deliberately forcing their predictable response to punish them.

It’s the ultimate proof that Robbi wasn't just an incredibly gifted natural puncher; he possessed a master-level analytical mind to engineer absolute destruction.

It's exactly why I chuckle when we get into back-and-forth debates about the supposed evolution of boxing. I don't see any filmed evidence to dissuade my contention that Robbi, pre-Doyle, could very well stop, and I mean brutally KO, your favourite modern-day ATG.

 

I think it's becoming a bit of a myth, in a similar fashion to Ali and RJJ were all reflexes, no fundamentals or that Evan Fields was merely a headbutt specialist or Liston wasn't a fantastically skilled boxer.

The issue is that's it's us older guys that are more likely to listen to a D'Amato, Futch, an Arcel, a Blackburn - some fans won't even listen to Duva, Manny Steward or a Benton. There's people that I know that dismiss Atlas cos of his Tyson blindspot and how he looks - it's just become a new generation of fickle fandom who like shiny new toys.

Put it like this, I've recently watched Robbi Vs Docusen over and over again and whilst appreciating that an older MW Robbi was much more content with relying on his chin and standing in the pocket and outmanning his opponent, it was a stark reminder that Robbi was capable of boxing almost Pep-like if he wanted to, but when God gives you that God-given hand-eye coordination and power combination, you don't need to box like a Pep who gets murdered if he stands toe to toe with Saddler. Technically, you're the Saddler, power wise - don't need to box like Pep when you can knock a man out either hand.

I think I probably listen a bit too much to the younger or more general fan who look at the greats and dismiss them cos they don't have zero's on their loss stats or they get judged by how they ended up rather than how they started ala SRR, RJJ, Ali, Louis, SRL, Charles etc.

You're right though, Robbi got his kudos from those that saw him in and around his best - I just happen to think he's undersold nowadays in terms of how good he really was as an artist as opposed to a knock out specialist in the ring.