Boxing Defense - Shoulder Roll (Mayweather, Toney, Locche, Whitaker, Benton)

Say what you want..but in recent memory it's James Toney for me...Him not athletic as the Mayweathers and the likes..but still made it look beautifull..standing there infront of a guy..at an angle..make him miss by rolling your lead shoulder away..and while he's vulnerable with his right hand out there let your own shorter right hand and smack!!

 

"[T]ake George Benton. He didn't have the connections. He was the uncrowned middleweight champion. His people down in Philadelphia didn't have the connections. He didn't want to hook up with the promoter there, Herman Taylor, so George never got a title fight. George and I kid about it now. I screwed him out of a middle-weight title fight with Dick Tiger. George was the number one contender, but I maneuvered Joey [Giardello] into the title fight because I had the connections. I sat down with the right people and worked out the right deal. I never sat down with Carbo, but there were other people I sat down with."

-Lou Duva, quoted by Dave Anderson, In This Corner

 

Benton and Toney are my 2 favorite's

 

Great stuff. Benton didn't dream of throwing punches, he dreamt of slipping them. He did some awesome work with the class of 84. He improved Holyfield's defense immeasurably. Marvis Frazier's progress went backward when his father started taking over from George. One of the great trainers.



https://www.si.com/vault/1992/11/02...-that-he-imparts-to-the-worlds-best-fighters#

 

good on ya!

as you probably know, posts from the main forum come fairly regularly that related to ageing, ie, "Golovkin is 35, is he past his prime?"--stuff like that.

i think threads like this would benefit from your perspective, which is based not on armchair speculation but on actually getting in the damn ring

so for instance the casuals on those threads talk about obvious physical deterioration with age, but they have non idea about the accumulation of boxing knowledge and refinement of instincts which increases with age--so net decline is when the later can no longer offset the former. Again, love to get your views on one or more of those threads if you've got the time

 

a figher named Dimitry Pirog, who if you don't follow MW closely you might not even know who he is

he was a Russian WBA MW champ who retired very early due to a chronic back injury

he was tall for a MW and very slim

beautiful, smooth-as-glass shoulder roll--both from orthodox and from southpaw

Dimitry fought Daniel Jacobs in 2012 or 2013 (and KO'd him); that fight is a nice showcase

 

Very familiar with Pirog.
He was a favorite of mine of the more recent fighters. Destroyed Jacobs. Got hurt training for GGG fight.