Cross Armed Defense Discussion

Slipping is better, and I dont care how tight your arms are, your going to get hit, and Wlad can hit very hard. Eventually hes going to break through that defense and the smarter fighters, like I said can expose it.
You even see Evander Holyfield using it alot now, because he cant pull the trigger anymore. He has to put himself into punching range, and when the shot comes he tries to block it and counter out of it almost exclusively with his lefthook. When he was younger he could slip or feint to take advantage of those openings, but now hes too slow.

 

Its cumbersome and its the ultimate telegraphing of punches right there 'I just uncrossed my arms guess what I'm going to do next'

If you bob and weave or use a shoulder roll stance it'd be more effective as you can hide the right to sneak it in. And your parrying is more solid/stronger, so it makes for a good survival guard at times

But overall just an awkward unnatural guard to use imo

 

When Archie Moore did it, it was so effective because he would lean forward sort of, so that he wasn't only guarding his head, it was very difficult to land body shots on him, if his opponent tried to body shot him they'd be reaching and he could counter, using leverage to it's maximum. Serously, the way he used that technique totally encompassed what he was so famous for, being one of the craftiest fighters ever.

 

Honestly, no I do not. Skilled out fighters with a lot of power, speed and range who keep their range do not fall into the trap of being counter punched.

 

Basically you have to be super slick to pull it off effectively. Even so I think it hindered Moore getting his shots off against Marciano/Patterson, he was past prime by then, but you could see that he was reduced to waiting until they finnished punching to punch because of the restrictive nature of the guard

 

Its used in range, not necessarily infighting. and fighters use it to get into range. Holyfield was a perfect example how to exploit it as you will see in the first minute of the clip of this fight with Cooper. Watch as Holyfield goes down to the body and up and under with the uppercut. He used similar combinations against Foreman as well.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uo5NPJ5R2E&feature=related[/ame]

 

That said though, it's tremendously difficult to hold off the likes of Marciano. Even Walcott, who used a more 'suited' way of countering him, he had some success but it wasn't effective ultimately. The man was just a nightmare to be in the ring with.

 

You see a lot of shorter fighters using it to get into range, because of their reach deficit.

 

Moore was able to counter Marciano fairly well I thought, but Rocky was just relentless and walked through Moore's punches after the knockdown he suffered. Archie wasn't quick enough to respond to Patterson's combinations though.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdsPpt_CaHs[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzmlTHnd5K[/ame]

 

Yes, but what Max Baer did against Schmeling was to immediately wrap his right around his head after missing one of his crosses, an efficient continuation of that leveraged momentum. This defensive ploy blunted some of the German's vaunted counter punching. It's been said this was one of Schmeling's weakest performances in a major bout, but the role of the winner in compromising that showing ought not to be overlooked.

 

Moore seemed to use that defense more to protect his body and rely on head and upper body movement to protect his chin, but to me it still shows the gapping hole in his defense and Marciano was timing him with good shots to the head. The opening was there Marciano just had to time the punch and landed cleanly.

 

Power, you don't uncross your arms to throw a punch out of the cross, or if skilled in it you don't have too, I never did. The punches come from the crossed positions and are sneak punches exactly because of what your saying, it looks like they can't. Also to a previous poster, your right that usually not much power is in these punches, their not fully thrown, but you can get good snap in them nonetheless and against some opponents you can land often with them.

 

Yep, Holyfield needs to retire.

I agree with your assessment. I think against Wlad it could be used closer in, perhaps, but at that point he'd be clinching like there's no tomorrow.