is the clinch/inside fighting a lost art these days

Surely you can't say such a thing about an era which produced the all-time master, John Ruiz!

 

Mayweather put it on Hatton, even though the ref got in the way a lot.

 

Almost. Perhaps if the ref's did not break up clinching much and allowed fighters to fight their way out of a clinch, we see better in-fighters.

 

Ac cording to reports Billy Petrolle had no equal as an infighter,yet he has never ,to my knowledge had a thread dedicated to him. Sam Langford was terrific inside ,some said because his eyesight was so poor he couldnt afford to mess about at distance.Hopkins is certainly crafty at in fighting Toney is good too,the thing is a lot of boxers today have relatively few fights before challenging for a title ,so they dont have time to learn their trade. The emphasis is on an unbeaten record ,so guys are steered away from learning fights because they are too risky for their marketability.

 

John Ruiz is the alltime clinch master, perhaps along with Sammy Angott and late Muhammad Ali. They may hate him, but he's found a niche in the world of boxing and a level of success that most similarly physically ungifted fighters have failed to attain. For that, and for defiantly thrusting himself time and time again into the heavyweight picture with his ugly, but effective style, he deserves some praise. His record against former middleweight champions however, deserves no praise at all. Both Roy Jones and James Toney would have both failed dismally as heavyweights and both would be subjected to humiliating ko defeats if they had fought Lennox Lewis or either Klitschkos instead of Ruiz.

 

Another great clincher was of course Ernie Terrell, also known as The Octopus.