The Right Swing (Fitzsimmons)

If you watch Fitzsimmons vs Corbett, as well as that fight on youtube where Fitzsimmons is old as ****, you notice he likes to get in close and chop away with what looks like right-handed hockey punches. If you read his book Physical Culture and Self-Defense (free on google books), he talks about this punch, which he calls the right swing.

It's basically an overhand right, but instead of pushing the punch as most folks do, you actually whip the punch over and in with your arm more or less stiff. He explains it much better than me. What it does is shortens the right hand for effective use at close range while putting max power into the shot. Basically your elbow is aligned and your shoulder and back are brought into the punch very powerfully. It lands on the temple, guard, chin, whatever HARD. Your entire bodyweight is brought down on the target basically.

If you want better video of what this can do, watch Earnie Shavers highlights. His thing was a left hook to the body followed by that right swing and it knocked dudes right the **** out because they never saw it coming (and also because he was an inhuman destruction machine). Behold: (slo-mo example at 2:20)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDdLo-StX40[/ame]

Anyhow, I've been out of serious boxing due to work and injuries for like 2 years. While my left hand was broken and casted, I experimented with this punch on the bags and in shadowboxing quite a bit. Healed up, got back in the gym and got to sparring. Everybody I was in with commented that they couldn't see my right hand coming due to the ugly way I threw it. Was stunning some dudes pretty good just by catching them unaware even though I was throwing at sparring power (and out of shape from not working out for 2 years).

Read up on this punch and try it out on the bags. It feels good and you will want to hit someone with it. Literally feels like you could crush someone's skull. Try it out in sparring (the punch, not the skullcrushing), it will work.

PS the beauty of this is that it adds unpredictability to your right hand and makes you very difficult to counter. It totally shields you from a left hook counter and you're slipping outside their right. You'll find that your right uppercuts and traditional straight right tend to land more and cleaner because the other guy doesn't know what to do when he sees the right coming. If you like to mix in rights to the body that makes things even worse for them.