Question for those who believe "boxers were cavemen back then"

Fighters just got hit in the face constantly, then one day sombody had the brainwave of holding his hands up to protect himself, and destroyed everybody around.

Once the blueprint for holding your hands up had been invented, everybody else coppied it and wonderd why they didn't think of it. The fact that they had not thought of it previously seemed strange in retrospect, because whenever you threw a shoe at them, they instinctivley raised their hands to protect their face.

That is what some people would have you believe.

 

If they were keeping their hands low and not getting hit then there wasn't a problem. That didn't look to be the case though

 

Didn't look to be the case where? How much have you seen/read of the old timers squire, all you seem to post about is Amir Khan and the Klitschkos.

 

Do you think that fighters got hit more often on average, say in the early 30s?

 

Maybe they thought it was better to deliver a blow with your hands lower, in terms of power, and didn't think as much about the consequences of getting hit, and defense?

 

Defensive technique was different. Nowadays, boxing technique dictates that if you make a punch miss, you should pass it and step in. Hands up to block what you can't slip or duck. If you are too tall to duck or slip effectively, use the clinch defensively, or use lateral movement to keep a foe out of position.

You are told, offensively, to work the jab to set up "touches" and commit with full power when you are sure it will land. An example would be shoe shining. Another example is flashing a left hook to the temple before committing to a hard one to the body.

The manual back then seems a bit different. The whole notion of set up is clearly altered. More power is placed into punches on the outside, and inside fighting was entirely different with the lack of swift breaking in the clinch. Also, leaning straight back and backing straight up was not taboo, like it is now. You can't tell me it was: Everybody tries to avoid punches that way, which would mean that either trainers were god awful, or that was considered a legitimate avoid.

Boxing has evolved, period. It doesn't mean its inherently better(I think it is, and I've seen 30 years of development, as had my father and his father), but it is clear that thing started, slowly but surely to get different over time.

There was no clear masterpiece of pugilism back then. Guys were pioneering an artform. They get passes for trying styles back then that maybe weren't awesome.

You can watch fighters like Fitzsimmons figure out what was weak in primitive styles. There are thinkers and innovators in every era. And they were HARD men.

 

i think they relied more on head movement then blocking ,and with the small gloves it wasn't easy or viable to block shots anyway.

 

I'm just speculating. At the same token, I'm not saying they treated defense like Rocky Balboa, but that it was just less emphasized. Magna seemed to cover the topic well, I think, but again I don't really know.

 

You're right, Roy Jones, what a joker.

If it can work for less athletically gifted fighters such as Froch, Darchinyan and Haye (to a lesser degree) than I can't see why it's all that much of a problem.

And they didn't have to worry about getting hit in the gut with small gloves. They chose to use this style, just as the old timers did. It also helped facilitate the parry, and as for Fitz, you can see him step out of range and lift his hands up to block. These guys tried everything, they knew what they were doing.

I mean, the guy in your avatar holds his hands up and is still very hittable.

 

A few points

1. Even with low hands, most fighters filmed had a stance that was off balance and they are very straight up, no lateral movement, so the low hands is not the only problem

2. It's more energy efficient to have low hands in long duration fights. Long duration fights mean each fighter should be looking to conserve as much energy as possible, fighting on the back foot and looking to pot shot from range conserves more energy

3. Boxing was not nearly as popular as it would become post-Dempsey, hence the talent pool was small

4. Fighters can be very reactive and sometimes sign none aggression pacts both happy to box at range at a slow pace. Many old time fights do seem to be boxing at range, so low hands are less of an issue

 

Now that's a post.