The use and importance of guard has been much discussed lately. My position is that you can be succesful without a disciplined textbook guard, and you can have one and still not be that succesful. But everything else being equal a textbook guard is a definitely plus. Off the top of my head, Marquez and Loma are good examples of fighters with more or less text book guards (there will always be some individual variations). Discuss!
Ottke had the best guard I've seen in years. He was pretty much impossible to hit clean and had some real nice boxing radar as well. Ringsmarts. He also had what has become a rarity itself--the ability to hold those hands and arms up high for the duration of a fight. Plus, the ability to bring those arms right back to their proper position whenever he did punch. Who deflected punches better than Sven? So many guys are not fluid with just that part of things. When they get fatigued, they bring those arms back slower and lower. Or, worse even, get alligator arms in there if they got countered cleanly or had to absorb body punishment. Or are far more susceptible to counters--or jabs--when they get fatigued and cannot bring those hands back like they could the first few rounds. That Ottke gave an opponent nothing in there. They had to work for everything & it had to be frustrating fighting a guy like that===a spoiler of the highest order. And it takes absolute top conditioning to pull off that Ottke style because every opponent he faced punched harder. Very very little margin for error. But very very few people like that style and want slugfests and do not want to watch a guy deflecting punches all night.
