Of all the champions and contenders, which ones can you think of whose styles most reduced their chances of getting concussions and other wear-and-tear on their brains over the course of their careers? These needn't be exciting guys. I'm sure there's more than one way to skin a cat. BHop's clinching, Floyd's evasion and caution, Jimmy Young's spoiling, Ruiz's outright wrestling...even Wlad's power as a way to keep fighters from exchanging blows with him...and so on. Which fighters' styles would you rate as the best custodians of their neurological health?
Roberto Duran comes to mind first as he still has all his marbles, of course Duran was rarely nailed with hard shots even when he was hit usually it was glancing.
Fighters that used the high guard in recent years seem to have gotten out of the sport ok. Winky Wright, Ike Quartey, Arthur Abraham, and Glen Johnson come to mind. That style usually is successful when the fighter using it has a thunderous jab and likes to move forward. It the guys that slip or bend that seem to get caught on the back of the head a lot which becomes an issue later in life. James Toney comes to mind as a guy that got hit often behind the head in fights. Then again, he was notorious for sparring tons of rounds which I'm sure didn't help him long term health wise.
I'm absolutely sure it does, but I imagine eating punches unnecessarily doesn't help either. At least insofar as getting punched in the first place is a precondition for getting concussed by a punch.
Jack Johnson's style was never pleasant to watch, but it was certainly effective in neutralizing his opponents and self-preserving his physical integrity. I read somewhere that Jack Johnson rarely ended his fights with any marks or bruises on his face. His safety-first style certainly contributed to that.
I tend to think it might be guys with power who go for (and get) the early KO more often. Shorter the fight, the less chance of being hit. Even a good defensive fighter is going to take a lot of punches even if they aren’t concussive, and as thin as research is the CTE work on micro-concussions (repeated non-concussive blows ot the head like football linemen banging helmets every play) is not promising. There is absolutely a genetic component to this but I’m not sure getting knocked out 3-4 times (or however many) and having a lot of short fights isn’t better than repeated longer fights with less concussive damage.
@AwardedSteak863 came closest for me. It's not the style that matters, it's your attitude to sparring. A fighter these days might fight forty fights. That's only 400 rounds, for a total non puncher. That's absolutely nothing. But if he has an elusive style and boxes many gym wards between fights - Toney - he'll emerge more harmed than someone like Johnny Nelson who hardly ever took headshots in sparring. The sparring is the thing that does the harm, not the fighting. There is no style that matters enough to circumvent caring for yourself in the gym.
