How effective is this move? Terrible Tim Witherspoon 2X heavyweight champ teaches the old school technique of rubber necking. The subtle art of turning your head to makes a punch miss by inches while loading up a counter. Tim Witherspoon This content is protected
Most boxers naturally rotate the neck as they see the punch coming but for me Canelo has taken this to the next level. This is one technique that Canelo has perfected, the way he turns away with the neck but also the upper body rotation making his body a coiled spring then comes back putting his whole body into the counter
It's what good well-schooled fighters do, if you look closely. But big stiff idiots don't do it. Unfortunately, in this day and age, big stiff idiots can get quite far in boxing. And maybe not enough fighters practiced this technique. Tim highlights a good point . If a boxer does this really well, there's a danger the judges will not notice, and will score the punches for the opponent.
Tim's right, this is a good component to have in a layered defence. If you can do it right, it's an excellent fail safe. Say you slip a one-two, them roll a hook, you come back up and you can see he's thrown a backhand but don't have time to defend it conventionally, or space to step out of range/pivot off; this is when it should be used, as a last resort so you don't have to just cop that shot and take it flush. You can get away with avoiding it. It's a very dangerous technique to get wrong. Before we were taught at our gym, we had it nailed into us that this is a last line of defence, not a first. We weren't taught how Tim teaches it here, we were taught by working with a partner on the bag, holding a foam tube and whipping it in as we punch. Making sure we get the timing down our most compromised position.
