Taller fighters are ideally more boxer oriented due to using their height and reach to their advantage but there’s been tall fighters that prefer to use a more aggressive come forward approach or fight toe to toe. Who are some taller, slender fighters who are known for that approach and very effective in fighting in the pocket? Carlos Zarate is the first fighter to come to mind.
Margarito is this archetype to a tee. His biggest strengths were inside fighting, lead uppercuts, body punching, relentless pressure, and, of course, his durable chin. He was so slow, flatfooted, and unsophisticated from long range that it was actually to his benefit to fight on the inside for the majority of his career. But he actually did have some decent skills when up close.
Anyone remember Jarrett Hurd? Big tall 154 fighter who preferred to slug it out. That guy had a style similar to Margarito. His fight with Erislandy Lara was insane.
I tried coming up with some and the majority of them were on the smaller side, do you think there could be a correlation with them having shorter arms and developing their game around that? I mean it’s in the name swarmer isn’t it. Tyson is one of the most renowned and I always thought Povetkin looked a little like him with certain things and he had a mediocre reach.
Yehhh Tommy showed a rather underrated inside game at times, especially in his later years. Like even though the fight with Virgil Hill was a battle of jabs for the majority of it, Tommy still neutralized Virgil with vicious body attacks whenever he got close.
