The all things technical thread.

I understand what you're saying now, HH. Again it's just what they want to avoid, most of the time it's the left hook as well so they do tend to move left. Maybe my post was too geared to avoiding the back hand.

If you circle to your left you give a better chance for your opponnet to land the right hand. So in the question you were asking, yes it would be an advantage for the fighter who moved the other way.

A fighter shouldn't do the same thing all the time though. If you always circle to avoid the back hand your pattern becomes predictable and your opponent can adjust and set traps for you and anticipate where you'll be. They'll just move across you and close the direction your moving in.

Circling to the right, if they shoot a right hand you can slip that go to the left and open up the right side of his body. So i wasn't saying moving right was something that always had to be done. But just as a base general rule.

:good

 

Finally we got there.

This content is protected

 

Any thoughts on the mental side of the game? I'm fascinated by that.

 

All good anecdotes, Hairy. I was referring more to the mental approach of a fighter and how important the mental side of the game is though. The psychology. How fighters overcome their anxieties, how they control fear and use it to their advantages etc.

Mental fortitude is probably much more important than the physical. Boxing is more a mental game imo.

 

How do you train your mind to be as tough as your body? That's what i wanna know. Overcoming all the challenges that boxing throws up mentally. The loneliness, the fear, the tension, the apprehension etc. When a time comes when a fighter is under the gun how does he cope and face the gun face on. Fighters have to be so mentally strong it's unreal. How does a chinny fighter not become gun-shy. I have soo much respect for fighters who get brutally knocked out and still don't lose an ounce of their ambition and don't become gun-shy. And go again to go under that gun even against big punchers. The mind can play tricks on all of us.

Wlad is a good guy to analyse in this subject. He had serious mental weaknessess. He wasn't a natural fighter so had to learn how to become comfortable in that ring. He would have anxiety attacks at times because he wasn't comfortable in the ring. But to his and Manny Steward's credit they worked and put hours in the gym to make Wlad comfortable in the ring and lose any panickness he had. To the point now where he's probably as comfortable in the ring as he is going in the shower. That's the goal for all fighters and some are lucky enough to be naturals like Toney and Duran and they could do what they did just getting out of bed, whilst others need serious mental work.

Just imagine being in that dressing waiting for the call? It would probably break the normal person. Lennox was the best i saw in taming pre fight nerves. His concentration and intense look was immense. He looked like he was in a different world. He also used to take a nap just before that dreaded call and knock on the door.

 

I don't think there is an elite pressure fighter today. Someone who understands the nuances and subtleties of applying educated effective pressure, wearing your opponent down without doing THAT much yourself or getting your head rocked backed.

For me Chavez is the ultimate pressure fighter and someone all pressure fighters should study. He understood it so well. His defense was underrated, he blocked and slip a lot of punches.

What a pressure fighter should be doing is try to get the opponent to give up a lot of ground and getting fighting at a faster pace then they're used to. Carry them fast, this way they'll get tired quicker.

The key and this is what Chavez did, is to pressure a guy not so much with your punches as that leaves you open to being hit, you don't put pressure on someone by just walking forward and swinging away you'll get eaten up. You have to put mental pressure on him with your PRESENCE more than your punches. This is the key also to having a better defense as a pressure fighter. Being patient but urgent at the same time, it's a real art.

If you understand the pressure spots you will get him tired just with your presence and the positions your taking up in the ring. I think Castillo/Floyd is a great example of this. Castillo got Floyd to give up a lot of ground and Castillo didn't go wild, he just pressured him with his presence and just stayed on point. No coincidence he was a student and sparring partner of Chavez.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9PzyfeC-FA[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ype3EKJ_DQk[/ame]



[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzUWNrOA7Hc[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20zok3jpoXY[/ame]


^ The perfect pressure fighting performance. I've learnt so much watching that.

I'll add more tomorrow...

 

Laz- I layed down the rules before we got married. It's in the contract. I said. I'll be home when I want and hit the sack when i want and I don't expect any hassle. I also expect a decent meal to be on the table every evening, unless I say otherwise. I'll go out card-playing and shooting dice with my friends whenever I want. Those are my rules.

I gave her the chance to have her say on the matter, spell out her disagreements with any of that and comment and she was fine with it all. To my surprise she said, no everything is fine but just understand that there'll be sex here at nine o'clock every night ...whether you're here or not.

 

You're preaching to the converted here, mate. Agree with everything you layed down. Boxing has regressed in almost every way, but most alarmingly in the technical department. It's pretty much the only sport where the participants of yesteryear are clearly better and more refined in most cases. It's the only sport that hasn't moved on so much to the point where it becomes unfair to compare era's because of the advancements. Maybe it's because just the nature of it, the fact that being exposed to tougher conditions in general provides tougher fighters and live has just got a little more cushy, or perhaps it's because boxing deals so much in hand eye coordination and such an array of skillsets that no amount of new technology or nutrition or whatever innovations come about don't have an effect like they do with most sports.

For me it's mainly to do with the loss of true teachers and the loss of knowledge that just dissappears with the previous generations and is not retained. Boxing is a science and it has rules so it's skillsets need to be passed on and retained. It's not the case with most other sports. Even if it is they have the neccesary tools in place to do that.

I've seen with my own eyes fighters with serious flaws and their trainers will just tell them about it if they even pick it up at all. They don't work with them to correct it, mainly because they don't know how. What this does is it makes bad flaws become habitual bad habits. That's why you don't see fighters anymore or many of them that improve immeasurebly and go on to great things even though they don't look impressive at the embryonic stages of their careers. Back in the day that was very common. Some fighters way even lose a few fights early on but would improve so much as they went on because they were being taught by true teachers. Fighting regularly and getting their education in a serious way.

I've posted about this many times. It's probably why out of the active fighters today there are only perhaps about 3 or 4 all time greats and maybe 1 or 2 potential all timers, if that. The so called elite or world class fighters will keep getting knocked off before they can establish much of a legacy.


Some of the flaws we constantly see now.

- Too much squaring up.
- Very little standing off centre
- No fluidity
- No understanding of the jab.
- Very little body work.
- Poor inside game in most fighters.
- All the little technical things and arts like parrying, feinting are mostly lost.

And i could go on and on...

I totally agree with you about the amateur game. It's played it's part in this regression. Some things like the decline in true inside skills and really good pressure fighters has a lot to do with that because they'r encouraged. When the kids become professional it's almost like they have to learn all over again, going from the frying pan into the fire and firing line. It's two totally different sports now the am's and pro's. Whereas before there was little difference in the amateur fighter to when they turned over. Very little difference from the amateur Ray Leonards, Pete Whitakers, Mike Spink's etc from the pro versions. They didn't have to adapt to anything as they essentially were already professionals, they just had to grow.

The nature of amateur boxing now encourages these flaws like plankton encourages seaweed. Such as poor footwork, no chin to chest tuck, no smart investments to the body as there's very little incentive to do that, No rolling with punches, no bending of the knees etc.

Also the end goal and product now is talent. Talent shouldn't be the seen as the end product it should be used and seen as a means not an end. The SKILLS should be the end product and end goal. Talent should just be used as a foundation but it's not it's being seen as the end product. Maybe because we've had an unsual run of super talented fighters in recent history, who were not neccesarily skilled. But very talented. What tends to happen is the next generation end up immitating those fighters they've grown up watching. So maybe that's another reason we're getting more TALENTED guys and not more SKILLED guys. And the amateur game has alot to do with that because it rewards talent not skill.

You shouldn't have got me started on this subject...i do tend to waffle on about it too much on this forum.