[GIF] Max Baer showing skill and reflexes with a triple jab, followed by a sharp combo, and a slip

Btw I agree with Reznick a bit here
Don't arbitrarily hate on a guys boxing if it worked
Flaws are part of the craft imho
Without flaws, you won't have a style unique to you

Champs are champs imo, no matter the time period
Thats just my humble opinion though

 

I don't hate fighters with flaws. I love Ali, and think guys like Jones are a very good watch as well. I just call a flaw a flaw.

 

It just gets so touchy on this board. Saying that Frazier was unusually one-handed for a fighter of his quality, how is that hating? Just about every fighter ever has some weaknesses. If one can't talk about those, what are we but moon eyed fanboys? What's the idea with such a forum?

 

Or call it a flaw and accept the flaw within a context so the discussion can deepen

A guy like Baer had a lot of untrained parts in his style
So, kind of like wilder, he had great strengths to compensate that made him champ
He wasn't a clown or something cuz he didn't have a well rounded style like Louis

Wilder these days is imo a throwback
He's like a guy from the 1900's cuz he just doesn't care to access todays knowledge on boxing
He's got his whipping punches and just lets it fly, haha

I did learn something from watching wilder
1) a certain amount of carelessness gives space for aggression
2) you can carry a fight with just your punches if you are crazy enough
Haha

 

Just my opinion ...... If no one can exploit it then there's no point making an issue out of "flaws".

We can all sit here sounding clever talking about correct technique, "fundamentals", etc.
But these boxers' careers are over and done with, and it's the record, the results that counts.

I don't really care about whether some fighter is "doing it wrong" if he's beating guys up. He must be doing something right.

 

Usually a fighters flaws catches up with them sooner or later.

What I really have come to appreciate with boxing fundamentals during my years of training boxing is that they are so hugely practical but also so difficult to master. I didn't always feel that way, but has come to do so through training and sparring.

With that said, I do think that mavericks like Ali and Jones truly have brought something to boxing as well. The only downside is watching ordinary guys try and copy them in the gym. Just doesn't work.

 

True. Mentioning weaknesses and refusing to accept bad excuses for losses are things that get a lot of people upset around here.

I will say : Joe Frazier almost turned his "one-handedness" into a strength !

 

If someone denies that Baer was one of the best HWs of his era with some very good wins - than that could be called hating (or just ignorance). But saying his main assets were size, strength, chin and power - not skill. That's just a reasonable statement of what you see.

And it doesn't mean he was void of skill either. He did after all train boxing full time for many years and tested his ability against quite a few world class fighters. Of course the guy had skills. It's just relative, that's all.

 

Regarding this thread, reznick is motivated by unreasonable persistent claims that Baer can't throw a jab, Baer can't slip a punch, Baer had no ring IQ and Baer had no skill.

 

Ok. I haven't seen that kind of criticism personally, just claims about it being made. And since I think I myself has been named a hater more or less for just disagreeing with effusive praise of clips like the one in this thread, I have been skeptical that Baer and others really have been the subject of such unreasonable criticism. But if he have, then you could call it hating (or ignorance).

 

On Friday, he grant posted :

"Max Baer could not throw a jab, could not slip a punch, was slow of hand and foot, threw round house punches and back hands with regularity and essentially showed zero skill other than using what at the time were superior physical gifts to most of his contemporaries, a big right hand punch and a hell of a chin. He was lazy, unfocused, unmotivated. In his one fight against a great fighter he was destroyed and completely exposed. He lost many times to glorified journeymen. He had one significant win over Schmeling, himself a pretty good but not great fighter.

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Nazim Richardson

 

Those are not the ones I have any problem with. I also don’t think he was overly skilled in the traditional sense.

Again, it’s the people who have an exaggerated bias against past fighters, simply because the are from the past, that I have a problem with.

Also this thread exposes something even uglier. That some people here will say 99 bad things about a boxer for every good thing they say. Even if they rank that boxer really high.

 

Hell Yeah. I don’t see why this is so hard. Some people would rather drink poison then give some deserved props.

Thankfully it works out for Foreman, despite the fact that he has those kinds of flaws.

I honestly look at it like unorthodox skill. Because I believe guys like Foreman, Baer, and Wilder could turn a switch on and be a more skill oriented fighter, but in order to use them, they’d have to be more pitty pat punchers.

For those three guys, their unorthodox style gives them comfort and flexibility to use their power in tons of different ways. And fighting with an overall adherence to classic basics would be a limiter to them, like it would’ve been to Ali (for different stylistic reasons).

 

It’s not, and at this point it almost feels like you’re purposefully setting up a straw man. Because I’ve explicitly made the distinction a handful of times between honest analyses and smear campaigns.

If you rank a fighter highly, but 80-90% of the things you say about him are negative, you have a problem.