You mean boxing has degenerated that much since I stopped following it? (The best single punch of Holmes's career was a right to Evangelista's neck. Norton gave Bobick laryngitis.) Wow, the sport really has changed!
They haven't; they just tend to aim at the solar plexus more; but plenty of guys still throw to the chest; body.
Holyfield dropped Tyson with shot to the chest, and, conversely, was finished off by Toney with a punch that landed in the same reigon. As Kolya said, it's still a targeted area, but it isn't as commonly targeted as it once was.
Hitting to the shoulder.....for years I'd bought that Ottka had a wildly inaccurate right hand until his last fight, where he did not get the KO he was looking for. Ottka threw the right, if the man moved to his left he got hit in the head, if not he got hit in the shoulder and , that weakened the man's left shoulder so that Ottka could win the later rounds.
Mike Tyson was an expert at throwong sneak shots to the liver.. He was an artist at perfect anatomical punching.. Golota was great at the art of Testicular damage..
In all seriousness, you might be on to something, Ottke's opponents always had very little punch outputs as the fight wore on.
Dempsey stopped a few guys with punches to the heart, Marciano loved to punch the heart neck and forearms, its a lost art today,Greb and Ketchel also like to stop an opponent in his track with a heart shot
I once read that in the days of bareknuckle fighting and even with the earlier style boxing gloves, you could KO someone with a shot to the heart, you had to land in a specific place (from memory digging in under the ribs) but as the gloves got more padded it was impossible to get enough concentrated impact. Can anyone verify this?