Picking out the technical shortcomings as compared to modern boxing - McFarland-Welsh

The reasoning is generally that they got away with it in their primes due to their extraordinary speed and reflexes, but was punished for their flaws when they aged. And there is some merit to this.

 

It's been shown to be better when used by the right fighters utilizing the right tactics. I don't think that can be argued. Why do you think the majority of great fighters use some variation of it? It's not as locked up. It allows for more variety and innovation.

 

Tony Canzoneri fought with a low guard, a very low guard actually, and did not have the reflexes and speed of Ali or Jones. And he fought in a more modern era with guys like Kid Chocolate and others. And he beat them.

 

Not as much as modern day fighters, thats why I posted that follow up video with two different stylists. You also see both fighters Welsh and McFarland falling off balance quite a bit.

And who would those many exceptions be? It took a physically gifted puncher to generate power from an inproper wide loopy delivery. I wouldnt say there was many, but there were some.

 

Overall, a very low guard will get you into trouble if you don't have great speed. I do agree that far from all modern fighters consistently use text book guard, but few have had a guard at waist level and been succesful. The exceptions to this rule have relied on great speed, and have often paid a price when their speed have diminished.

Try and have your hands at your waist in sparring and see how succesful you are. It definitely is not for everyone.

 

I gave you an example of a fighter without great speed who was successful with it. You don´t need speed to be successful with it. It helps but with the right tactics, a good judgement of distance, the skill to read your opponent and a good knowledge of your own limitations you can be successful with it.

 

In the absolute majority of cases a very low guard will be liability. There will always be exceptions, but it does certainly apply as a general rule. That is why a very low guard seldom is used.

If you box, you probably have noticed how vulnerable you get with the hands at the waist. Do you box?

 

There's Dempsey low, and then there's Abraham/Clottey high. I've always felt the best fighters ever generally had their guards a bit higher than lower. So for instance like Ezzard Charles. Otherwise they better have damn good footwork, be mobile, move their head a lot, and have a real knack for distance or at least the power to keep others honest.

Obviously there is a variation of it. Most opponents have a high right guard even if they have a low left guard (Joe Louis, Charley Burley, Ray Robinson). And a lot of these types of fighters had solid footwork and a real use of their chin tucked under their shoulder while being a bit off-center. Like say Bernard Hopkins.

Keeping your arms just low is not more effective than have them high or at least with some variation.

 

Boxing manuals from around 1900 (some are still in print) are virtualy indistinquishable from their modern counterparts. The one obvious difference is the hand position that they recomend is lower.

The reason given for recomending the lower hand position is usualy to guard against body shots. It is noticable that a lot of early fighters who use a lower guard adopt a higher guard when they drop into a crouch, and the body is protected e.g. Joe Louis.

Tommy Gibbons claimed that he adopted a low guard against Jack Dempsey in order to make his chin the main target, and draw his opponent away from a body attack.

In summary I submit that the low guard style of fighting reflects a greater emphasis on protecting the body, and a desire to keep the hand in a position to better exploit openings. While some fighters who use a low guard do so for these reasons, others simply use the chin as a decoy to draw punches and counter them.

 

It may well have been a partial remnant from the bareknuckle era that gradually was abandonned. During the 20's and early 30's the guard became higher, it seems to me, and by late 30's/early 40's most seem to have adopted about the same guard as today's fighters.

 

I disagree that it´s a liability. It´s a matter how used to it you are. If you never train it, it won´t work for you. If you train it, it will.

I was a at a few gyms here in Berlin, trained and sparred there. Problem is the gyms here are dominated by Turks, Arabs and Russians. When you go there as a German you get beat up for beeing a German afterwards. I was at 4 gyms, happened at all of them everytime I was there. It´s not good to go to work with a beat up face when you work as a Consultant.

I have more than 10 years experience in Karate and some years in kickboxing though. In both I competed too. In Karate you use a mix of high and a low guard - the left hand is held very much like the bareknucklers and pioneers did, the right hand a bit higher but not at your chin - , the main subject of this guard is to protect the body - no gloves! - and to block/parry kicks - that´s the thing that makes it hard to compare to boxing - punches to the had could either be parried and/or you use movement or head movement to avoid beeing hit. I have to add I trained Shotokan and Kyukushin, both are styles where you fight more from a long range and not in close, currently I train Goyu-Ryu which is made to fight in a telephone booth, it´s quite different from the other styles due to that, less kicks, more knees, more grips/handles, more throws and those things. But from that experience I can say that low guards work quite well when you are used to it, employ the right tactics and have some experience with it. Still, has to be taken with a grain of salt since it´s not boxing.

That was not what El Buja wanted to say though, or at least not what I thought he wanted to say. A lower guard allows you more variation and creativity than a standard high-guard. A standard high-guard is still much better than a peek-a-boo defence in terms of variation though. That does not mean it´s better. Different guards are better for different fighters and styles. Greats have the tools to exploit the advantages of lower guards while compensating the liabilitys of it. The average fighter does not, so for him the high guard is best.
I think El Buja´s point was that you can´t say this guard is better or that, it always depends on the fighter and what he does with it - can you imagine Ali with Tyson´s peek-a-boo? Or Tyson with Ali´s low guard? Would they have been as successful? I doubt it.

:good

I´ve got bodypunches with and without gloves, and even when you are prepared bodypunches without gloves do more damage by quite a bit. Not talking about knockouts but about taking away breath, stopping you from doing anything for a short while and so on. Those things happen with gloves too but multiply it with something like 10 and you have how it is without gloves.

There are still quite a few guys around throughout history and even now without a highguard.

 

Yes, but not as lows as hands at their waists. Ali and Jones weren't consistent with such a low guard either. They often knew to keep their hands up when within range of an opponent they respected. The consistent hands at waist style has all but disappeared, and there's a reason for it. Try such a low guard in a boxing gym, and any trainer will correct you. For the same reason.

 

As was pointed out earlier, old-timers didn´t fight all the time with their hands at the waist either. Watch the fights, at closer range or when in the crouch the hands move farther up albeit still in the position to protect the body.

The reason the high-guard is trained in boxing gyms before is because the average fighter is better of with it. But most of the fighters we are discussing here are anything but average.

Btw. as pointed out I was sparring in boxing gyms and you don´t throw away habits you trained for more ten years. So, I quite often fell back to the old Karate guard in sparring, yes I got corrected, but even with that I did quite decent. One advantage is that your opponent isn´t experienced in dealing with it, the angles you throw your punches from are different and a bit harder to see and they often are drawn to throw at your unprotected head even when it´s too risky or they are out of position.

 

Its true that the majority of the greats have a lowish left hand, it allows them to snap out a jab easier and with greater power or lead with uppercuts, hooks etc. But the vast majority then have that chin tucked behind the shoulder and a high right hand that allows them to parry the jab.

Duran, Charles, Ray Leonard, Hearns, Louis, Ross and even Robinson have that low left as well as a right hand that is constantly in a position to block. Bigger gloves do have a role to play in the extrmely high guards we sometimes see today but to argue that there is no development in terms of glove positiong and stance from fighters in the 00's to the fifties is ridiculous. You can't blame it all on the film lets be honest, it doesn't warp what punches they throw or their positioning.

 

I don't watch much MMA, but from the little I've seen, the tight guards they use are more for show than anything else. Their defensive fundamentals lasts about as long as it takes for the first punch to land. Thereafter it's a mixture of haymakers, blind swings and cowering on the ground. They only resort again to a tight guard when their faces are buried into the canvas and they use their guard to protect the rest of the head which is exposed - a luxury boxers don't have, because they can't cover half their heads in the ground.

Could be wrong, just my impression.