It says no wrestling or grappling of any kind. Now I understand grappling was a huge part of London Prize. But MOQ rules specifically prohibit it as much as any other illegal tactics. Yet we see clinching all the way from Corbett, to Jack Johnson, to Ali, to Klitchko...none were disqualified. Don't the rules imply that clinching should be treated the same as a low blow or a headbutt? Is there some sort of minor change in the rules since I'm missing? Am I missing something?
Clinching was never smg that could disqualify any fighter, at most I've a point here and there taken for excessive Clinching, because, technically it's against the rules, so is holding out your arm which is how vit fought every fight start to finish. Clinching is against the rules to an even lesser extent than pushing is. When a fighter is hurt, Clinching and pushing become prominent and very helpful to gain your marbles, that is the reason the unwritten rule is it's a part of the game. Holding is "not allowed" in the NFL buy if any game in the history is reviewed play by play with slow mo, as an experiment, there could be a flag thrown on every single play for any one of the 22 players on the field at any given time. A flag is thrown only when it looks so like a clear hold and possibly could had impacted the play. That would ruin the game. Same goes for boxing, if those rules were enforced there would be more disqualified fighters than actual outcomes. That would ruin boxing. All 4 of the rules above have unwritten rules for them which means they are too minor and occur too much for them to be implemented into real rules on a play by play or round by round basis
The onus is on the ref to call a timely break if the clinching becomes excessive or causes the action to grind to a standstill and become mostly negative. ...at which point the fighters must immediately obey, else they are breaking the rules.
A lot of guys will play it like they are so tired it literally isn't possible to break right away, hanging on for an extra moment and very slowly complying. This is 99% of the time cheap gamesmanship and should be punished more often with deductions. Even in a prizefight of any modern length, I don't care if it's midway into the 12th after a high pace has been set, you're never too tired to let go of somebody. If you can't do so without stumbling your goose is probably cooked but you don't get to hang on and milk it for several seconds after the break (or pretend you didn't hear the instructions) rather than just separating and risking incurring a loss fair and square.
Ok but sometimes late in fights you're so tired that you cannot hold your arms up. I've seen Gatti so tired that he couldn't even do a clinch because anything except standing still was too much.
Correct, strategic holding/hitting has always been canon (perhaps unrecognized but canon nonetheless) in modern boxing. That wasn't from fatigue, that was from the beatings.....
