~~~ ESB Box! Writing Championship™ - September - My Favourite Fighter's Style ~~~

:dead

 

Two more days!

 

Last chance to enter the September competition!

 

...about 6 hours left...time to hand in that last-minute entry!:thumbsup

 

My favourite fighters style:

Miguel Cotto; a stalking, marauding and relentless assassin of his opponents senses, who has a particular liking for Liver! Get in close and the pain begins, a gradual destruction of everything that his opponent posses is slowly taken away, as is their will and courage.For all the skills he posseses, we hang on a thread, knowing that he could get wobbled at anytime. His left hook could knock down the walls of a city, his warrior spirit akin to a time now long gone. Miguel cotto, a fighter who epitomises my favoutie fighting style!

 

It's fifty years in the future, and you're the manager of the heavyweight champion of the world. Your champion has a fight scheduled—but this isn’t a regular engagement. No, this is something special. You’re waiting in the main room of MIT’s Time Portal Lab for the arrival of the challenger…John L. Sullivan.

How do you figure out the style of a man who died almost a century ago? Let’s begin at the beginning—how did fighters in general fight back then? You browse through a series of period boxing manuals, and discover a few trends. Low guard, head-slipping, rising guards:

http://www.geocities.com/cinaet/price.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=FVY...=allanson+winn

A quick look at Cross_Trainer’s bareknuckle boxing list reveals the rest.

What about specifics? The IBHOF mentions that Billy Edwards trained Sullivan at one point, and Edwards wrote a book. His stance was narrower than typical, ramrod-straight. Early pictures of Sullivan confirm the impression:

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Still, he never completely absorbed this stance, for the Kilrain-Sullivan photo archive clearly shows that he deepened it to get leverage for his fearsome right hand, and bent his knees more than Edwards.

http://www.antekprizering.com/photoa...gesullkil.html

He was more “modern” than Edwards. Photographs taken of him show a deeper stance and a greater willingness to duck with his body rather than just his head. His hooks twisted around both feet, and he threw them from long range:

http://books.google.com/books?id=l1E...s#PRA1-PA32,M1

His only surviving film on Youtube displays shoulder-feinting skills, and doubtless he used this to set up his right—which he appears to have pulled back before striking.

 

“Hit and not get hit.” This was the heart of Muhammad Ali’s unique style. And the fistic master honed it to an art. He was a boxer, yet, as geniuses do, he created something new.

Idealism, not raw anger, propelled the Ali offense: fast, long-range jabs and straight rights, to open the way for combination flurries punctuated with rat-a-tat hooks and uppercuts. Scoring points, protecting that “pretty face”, winning rounds sufficed. Little bloodlust. A hint of compassion. Yet the prowess to close the show on a stunned foe.

Ali said of his legs, “Here’s my defense.” Prodigious legs, yes, and superhuman reflexes. Dazzling side-to-side, back-and-forth movement on the toes allowed Ali to stay out of range while seeking the opening. Complementary were sleek shoulder rolls and magical head punch-slipping: now turning both cheeks to avoid oncoming missiles, now pulling straight back faster than a speeding bullet!

A duck and half pirouette off the ropes (Ali seemed in two places at once: now back against the ropes, now snarling behind your back!) and a commanding clinch and shove (lethal dragons became immobilized lambs). And when youth and its gifts had to give way to experience, Ali joined the greatest artistic improvisors of all time by simply covering up against the ropes, daring, deflecting, absorbing, mentally mastering the strongest men, to finally explode back and send them plunging to defeat.

The unique Ali style proves how dedication begets manifold tools and resources truly your own.

 

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:nono :fire

 

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