"His hands are too low!"

Put 4oz gloves on today's boxer and you'd see a return of the low guard fast enough. Form follows function as they say and the low guard was needed when wearing smaller gloves. Bigger gloves enabled a fighter to keep his gloves up high to block punches to the face instead of picking them off from a distance. It also enables a fighter to let the hands go more and throw more combinations with less risk of damaging his hands. The old timers were every bit as skilled but had to fight differently due to the tools at hand.

 

Ali and the others like him had their hands to their sides to lend fluidity to their motions, foregoing textbook technique for unorthodoxy. This is a completely separate scenario to, say, Jack Dempsey who purposely let his arms down to protect the body. Jack's stance is actually technically sound for his time. The gloves were smaller and thus the normal pose used in more modern boxing, hands up to protect the face, would serve no practical purpose.

 

Or this, in other words.

 

ahh i kinda disagree here about the 4oz glove comment, look at mma fighters
they keep their hands up higher then boxers do and the reason most of them give is that
because there is less padding you have bring your arm higher so that that more of the forearm blocks the punch.




but as far as the low guard goes, well times change and you fight with the times

some guys can fight with low guard and other cant...

it leaves you more open yes
but it does some more open openings and perhaps better vision

 

The high gaurd may be the result of bigger gloves. The low gaurd has it's advantages. 1. More fluidity. It is easier to be relaxed with a low gaurd and therefore have better movement. 2. Punching power. With the low gaurd the punch travles farther to the target than it would with high gaurd. Punching power is the result of Mass (of the source)+ Distance (as long as the speed remains constant or increses) + speed.

 

That's incorrect. No MMA fighter effects the same stance as a boxer; most have their arms outstretched to intercept punches. Even ones with a background in boxing adapt their gait to fit the requirements of a cage match. It is a rare instance when they reign in their defense, and that, only to protect against high kicks. They achieve that protection because leg kicks, while more devastating than punches, are a blunt force unlike punches. None I've seen adopts the same tight guard of Tyson or Wright. Why? Because such a guard is virtually useless and inhibits the natural movements of a mixed martial arts contest. Old-style boxing is as far from MMA as it is to modern boxing. There is very little co-relation between them in terms of mechanics.

 

ahh hold on quick cash lol,

yes no most mma fighters don't use the same stance as a pure boxer because of kicks and taketowns but if you watch them when someone is throwing a lot of punches at them and they cant move....they put up their hands very high sort of like they do in thai boxing....

a prime example is rampage jackson and how he blocks punches, this is very common...

while i mostly box, i have done a lot of bjj and have sparred mma with mma fighters....

and they all say that for example to block a left hook or an over right hand in mma
you have bring your arm up higher then in boxing because of the gloves....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8x03a9wdeo

 

Yes, a high guard in MMA is pretty much useless when you have to worry about getting taken down, kicked, kneed, etc.

However, there are a lot of fighters that do block punches with a guard, most notably Quinton Rampage Jackson. See his defense against Silva just before the KO.

This content is protected

Edit, Wow Dabox, beat me to it...

 

I saw no clear use of gloved blocking in that clip. At 2:16 he slipped two punches and then at 3:18 he used his shoulder, not his glove, to protect his face.

To clarify my position please refer to any highlight of Fedor, GSP or Silva, three of the most educated strikers in MMA today. You will see that none adopt a traditional boxing stance.

 

you keep talking about stance....i am not talking about stance, i am talk how about how you keep your hands....high or low....

now when talk about fedor and silva, these guys are freaks with amazing reflexes and can fight with their hands low....trust you wont come to a lot of mma gyms and hear coaches tell their guys to keep their hands down....

gsp, has fought in all sorts of stances/guards.

fact is almost all mma fighters start the match with their hands up....if you go train with mma fighters,boxers,kick boxers, savate etc etc
they will ALL teach a begginer to fight with their hands up....
the stance may change from sport to sport...even country to country(compare a triditional russian boxer with a triditional mexican boxer).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85wRhMbdw6Q

watch anderson silva teach the jab for mma.....looks like triditonal boxing stance and all.


now watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC-gQgQJm6k&feature=related

fedor shadow boxing....very triditional style school of boxing....i trained with russian and romanian trainers before...so i know what i am watching

 

When I say 'stance' in reference to this, I do mean the position they hold their hands at.


[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3M4VacJ4NU[/yt]


0:52, 1:11, 1:40, 3:28, 3:40, 3:51, 4:11, and 4:55 best show Anderson Silva's stand-up. Never is he shown in a traditional boxing stance, and, more importantly, never are his opponents shown defending as a boxer would. Sometimes forearms are used but seldom to great effect, and only to deflect the odd head kick now and again.


[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDw3tUuoLpM[/yt]


At 0:57, Fedor is caught by Fujita while his arms are down; just another hazard every MMA fighter has to overcome. Would he have blocked it with his gloves if his hands were up? No, the punch would penetrate the small gloves.

1:18, 1:55, and 2:29 have Fedor dominating against larger foes. Ideally, if this were boxing, a defensive posture might be adopted. Then again why hinder offense with defense? Once more, no evidence of gloved blocking is apparent.

2:42- still the same old stance from the Russian. This time he is pummeling Tim Silva, recent KO victim of Ray Mercer. Silva provides a brief glimpse of blocking, but using his forearms, and not his fists. Silva completely sacrifices defense for offense just for respite but it is not effective and Fedor penetrates his defense anyway.

And, then finally, at 3:02, against Arlovski, neither he nor the man standing opposite him shows an inclination for gloved blocking.




If, after watching all this you are still unconvinced, then I suggest we agree to disagree as we have already wandered far off-topic and this is not the place to discuss such things.

 

yeah lets agree to disagree, but i think you kinda made my point in a way///

At 0:57, Fedor is caught by Fujita while his arms are down; just another hazard every MMA fighter has to overcome. Would he have blocked it with his gloves if his hands were up? No, the punch would penetrate the small gloves.


that is why a lot of mma block really high

oddly enough...this has been popular with some fighters like tito etc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qguQ...F6CDBF1C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=76

 

What do you mean by 'blocking really high'? I have a feeling you're referring to intercepting punches forearm to forearm.

The gloved blocking I mentioned involves the hands only and not any other part of the arm. That means having the right hand up at your temple and twisting to the right to brace for a blow from the left. Never is it shown in the video evidence provided. Silva and Fedor are learned practitioners, they could imitate boxing technique with great success, I'm sure, however they rarely call on those skills inside their arena simply because they're not properly suited for an MMA contest. Again, just to be absolutely clear, I didn't say one should have their hands held low. I said 'extended', as with about 90% of MMA fighters (Machida, Silva, GSP, Fedor). If these fighters kept their hands up and close to their heads, they'd leave themselves open to kicks to the midriff. It's not like boxing where you're hunched to cover up the body. The stance I described is actually the stance of readiness in MMA, anticipating all possible attacks from high or low.

Anyway, we've indulged in this topic too much it seems. It is highly irrelevant to the issue so let us please continue with the intended topic for now.

 

Either the ref was ridiculously late stopping that fight or thr winner perhaps should have been disqualified for carrying on hitting with the ref trying to pull him off.
Did the loser survive ?

 

No I agree. They were much harder to hit than it would appear and most modern fighters would struggle to land cleanly on them. If you got damage to the face in those days you couldn't fight for a few weeks, so you didn't get paid for a few weeks. So you didn't feed your family! Boxers from that era were masters of not getting hit for this major reason and usually worked the body much more.:bbb