Joshua Clottey does not have an effective defence

It makes his defence 'less better' if his defensive style means he is a pinata that can't stop his man unloading on him.

 

I think you guys are missing the point. Yes, holding your hands over your face for 12 rounds like a coward will make it much harder to punch you in the face. But it's not an effective defense as it allows you no opportunity to compete as a boxer.

If your rationale for quantifying how good Clottey's defense is is punch stats, then wouldn't his defense be the best ever if he hopped out of the ring at the first bell and knocked out one of the judges and been DQed? He wouldn't have taken a single punch then. Pacquiao's connect percentage would've been 0.

And hell, a DQ loss looks better on your record than a 12 round beatdown, anyway.

 

:deal

 

Joshua Clottey obviously wanted to hit Manny Pacquiao, but he was unable to do so because by the time he had peeked out from behind his guard, Pac has finished flurrying, and was changing position to start his next assault. For me, that is not an effective defence. In boxing, defence is not a passive/receptive thing. Yes, Clottey managed to make many punches hit his forearms instead of his face, but this in turn did not allow him to have any influence on the fight. And to be honest, his body was wide open and taking some vicious shots.

 

If you wanted to be hypercritical (and many people believe such an attitude is justified when discussing Clottey's showing vs Pac), you could say that any boxer could do what Clottey does. A rank novice could hide behind a simple guard, it takes no skill or intuition to do that. Juan Manuel Marquez could easily have covered up every time he saw Pac move to strike, and he could probably have avoided being knocked down several times. But if he'd done that, he wouldn't have got so close to Pac over 24 rounds. Marquez is no Sweet Pea when it comes to defensive technique, but I still prefer his active defence to Clottey's passive.

 

This part made sense:

And you can see my comment on Marquez in my previous post.

 

I have to log off now, but I'll leave you with three quick points (welcome back by the way):

- Clottey's body is always wide open to be hit

- The punch stat numbers were, as always, bollocks. I rewatched the fight and Clottey was taking a shellacking at times, Pac was spearing shots through his guard pretty regularly. I think this was because Clottey can't move the way someone like Winky Wright does, who uses that defensive style much better than he does

- Is a defence effective when it means you are a pinata with no way of stopping the punches coming?