Give me an example of you favorite fighter slightly bending the rules to gain a tactical advantage...Did you ever try it in sparring or a fight?
Nothing wrong with being rough within the rules, and subtly turning an opponent and moving his weight around but I personally don't like deliberate calculated cheating, I think its un-manly to be honest. I mean deliberate elbows, excessive holding, shoving down in the clinches, head butts, shoulder in the teeth type tactics. I know its become quite fashionable with Hopkins, mayweather and broner to name a few. No one could convince me that mayweather or broner shoving the point of their elbows in an opponents face 20 times a fight is 'bending the rules'. just dirty fighting, or cheating. Ali held fraziers head all night, broner elbowed the sh1t out of mallinaggi, Lewis clinched and mauled and leaned on shockingly against almost everyone he fought, even elbowed down on the top of levi billups' head mma style. Mayweathers elbows and forearms should have gloves on them. These are top fighters unwilling to fight within the rules, for whatever reasons, and a lot different to the odd nudge and shove inside.
Depends what constitutes bending the rules a bit or being plain old dirty. Former light-heavy contender Pierre Fourie had a litany of rule-bending antics as well as plain old dirty ones. He used to catalogue his list of 'tricks' in a diary so he was pretty serious about it! Some included: Biting an opponent on the eyebrows in a clinch Stamping on an opponent's toes Throwing low punches on the referee's blind side Headbutting with the side of the head inside a clinch Digging an elbow in an opponent's ribs or stomach in a clinch Grinding a knee on the inside of an opponent's thigh in a clinch and a few others. Remember back in the 90's when the loose tape trick became almost an epidemic? If a fighter needed a few second's break, you could bet that the tape on his glove would mysteriously start to unravel. It happened with monotonous regularity. Spitting out a mouthpiece is a famous old one as well.
Hector Camacho, Terry Norris, two supremely talented fighters, with the knack for bending the rules as brilliantly displayed in their wins over Sugar Ray Leonard. Using these tactics, they broke him down early and won without a problem
Mike Tyson, how many free shots did he get in after the bell?? Also those sneaky elbows and attempts at breaking people's arms.
Tyson was ruthless with the elbow and the arms locks. why did he feel he needed to do that? wasn't he confident just in himself? Id expect that behaviour more in women's boxing, but they're surprisingly clean.
What Duran did to Buchanan with his head was brutal. Then there was the low blows and epic nut shot. ****ing savage.
It wasn't all THAT subtle, but Wilfredo Gomez had this thing he'd do where after throwing a right hand, he'd follow through with it to the point of raking his elbow across his opponent's face. It was kind of an exaggerated follow-through so you knew what he was doing, trying to open up the other guy's eyebrows with his elbow, but I never saw him get more than a cursory warning for it.
