Does 'Textbook boxing' limit creativity and can only take a fighter so far?

The textbook will work for 90% of people 90% of the time.

The book was written by men and men are falible.

Some fighters have atained greatness precisely by turning the book inside out!

 

Had Marciano went by the book, I dont think he would have goten as far.

Thinking about it, I not sure how Ali would have done if he was "Text book" perfect.

 

I agree with Janitor. I would also like to add that more needs to be present.

A textbook boxer without a punch, without good ring intelligence, and/or stamina issues or discipline issues has a ceiling.

Give him a good punch, smarts, a large gas tank and the discipline of a champion, and the text book will get him by without much difficulty.

Finding a textbook fighter with ALL these is rare, I feel. The natural, more stylized and unique fighting styles are often created precisely because those attributes are possessed.

My Dad always said skills pay the bills, but they don't pay retirement. Gotta have something extra for that.

 

Very good question. I have thought of this as well and I think that it may be so in some isolated cases, but in general it isn't.

This is almost impossible to prove, since we can't say for absolutely certain how a fighter would have fared with a different style. But there are plenty to suggest that for example Ali could have won his fights against both Norton and Frazier with a more disciplined guard (which would have made his recors untouchable at HW) and that Lewis could have avoided the two KO's he suffered (which would give him an unblemished record as well). Holmes low left also evidently left him vulnerable even though there's not much to suggest it influenced his record.

I was watching Curry-McCallum today and Leonard commented several times on Mike having his left too low and thereby getting needlessly tagged by Curry's right and rocked a couple of times. Now, we all know he solved it anyway, but just like Leonard I could see no reason for that low left.

 

One fighter who atained greatness by turning the boxing book back on itself was Max Schmeling.

He was not a southpaw, but he basicaly said "this is what the textbook says, so I will throw the oposit punch from the oposite angle".

His oponents lead with a jab, so he lead with his right, and either sliped it over or pushed their jab aside.

Some people think that he lacked a left hand, and I can only say that he would like you to think so!

While his opponent was trying to fend off that overhand right, his left hook was beating their torso to mush, and then an uppercut would come in from nowhere.

If his overhand right won him the fight with Louis his uppercut certainly closed the deal!

Just one case study.

 

I guess it's all down to the fighter himself. I'm sure there's many fighters that have followed the textbook word for word and done very well from it.

For me though, it's the fighters that don't always go by the book that makes them great. The ones that do things their own way, adding their own creativity on top of what they've learnt.

If you look at some examples from the past, say Greb. His style used to confuse the hell out of his opponents, they'd never seen anything like it which made it very difficult for them to figure him out.

Same with Armstrong, his swarming style was very much his own and it worked wonders for him.

Or Kid Gavilan with his whipping bolo style punch, he didn't find that anywhere in a book.

 

i like the posts so far and can only answer, "yes". the textbook style will only take you so far. now, that may be to the top but still it limits what you can do and will try.

roy jones shat on the textbook and did things that were incredibly stupid but got away with them

ezzard charles was relatively speaking a complete, nearly flawless textbook fighter. and better p4p than jones

harold johnson was likely the most well known textbook fighter of the last 100 years and lower p4p than both charles and jones

so this is a long winded way of agreeing with Meast and say it, depends on the fighter but if you don't experiment and do the unorthodox, it limits you stylistically

 

Harold Johnson is a great example for this.

 

Yes, it limits creativity. Like memorizing a French dictionary without any knowledge of grammar.

 

Boxing has always been more art than science to me, despite the "sweet science" moniker it's always branded with. All of the great artists master the fundamentals before they start to improvise and take their art to the next level. The same is true of most of the great boxers, in my opinion.

 

This is where I'm at. Orthodoxy is great, and awareness of the fundamentals and what straying from them can mean for your game is critical. But, the best boxers have a unique style, which is where the "martial art" part of bxoing comes in. The best boxers transcend the fundamentals.

Even strict scientists like Leonard, Louis, Charles, and Burley have an element of artistry to their fighting, imo.

 

amazing thread Pater. I think about this all the time when Im sparring, and practicing.


The owner of the gym I go to would tell me in the first two weeks I was there, that i dont have to hit the heavybag hard, it's not necessary. His style he teaches is very mayweather-like. The same defense, and stance. And like Mayweather, he encourages accuracy on the bag instead of power.

Well I didnt listen to him, and ever since my punch has been a whole lot better, and I can really throw a banger now. I would have never been able to have gotten taht by following his instructions.


You gotta realize we, being boxing history connoisseurs, have the greatest advantage when making these types of decision in the development of our styles. We can look at all of the fighters in history, use the good, throw away the bad, find what works for us the best, and bam. Our creativity is greatly increased just by knowing all the different fighters of different eras.



I once read on this forum, that Bob Fitzsimmons used to imagine he was grabbing a rope to save himself from drowning when he punches. I inherited this tactic, and use it occasionally when im sparring, and it really works.


The greatest thing I learned from fighters of the past is the falling step from Dempsey. Im still really new to doing boxing myself (6 months in) but even when im matches with the big experienced guys in sparring, I can get off that jab effectively with the falling step.

 

That falling step/power line philosophy of Dempsey's is legit, if you work around those principles you will be able to hit very hard.

 

Hell yes!

Its hard to employ the power lines when your just learning. I was a bit confused. But now im becoming really familiar with my punching technique, and I can easily Identify the power lines, and yes they work!


One time Dempsey used a falling step so vigorous that the sound of his foot hitting the ring made a very loud noise heard easily throughout the arena lol