Top fighters who neglected the body?

Ali comes immediately to mind.

Edit-aaaaand that's before I read the 9 previous posts that said the same thing. Never mind me.

 

buchanan beat jim watt with body punches in 1973

 

Ali threw a lot of body shots against Terrell, when he couldn't get through to the head.

 

Hearns used to neglect the body before the Hagler fight, although one defense he used body punches in 1980 against Luis Primera. But after Hagler he seemed to develop his left to the body to combat the bigger middleweights and he turned into a slower inside fighter than he was before. That is why after Barkley, he went 12 rounds 7 more times and 10 rounds 2 more times. The body punching slowed his game down a little.

 

In most of his fights he was a headhunter though.

 

Vlad and Ali

 

I thought Pryor was brought up but yeah he was notorious in throwing wild head shots I don't think he even went much to the body against Arguello but I'll find out soon this year.

 

You did. I'll rewatch Pryor-Arguello 1 tomorrow but someone may bet me to it.

 

Just rewatched Pryor/Arguello 1 and noticed at times Pryor would box more and jab to the body or rarely throw uppercuts to the body sometimes when leaning on Alexis. I've also noticed that when Pryor was boxing on his toes especially in the middle rounds, Arguello didn't have an answer and would just take a few steps toward him and instead of really trying to cut off the ring he would let Aaron jab circles around him and occassionaly throw straights to Alexis' body. A good example of Pryor going to the body is in the 8th round. The fight was stopped a few seconds late I would've stopped it sooner. Great fight:good

 

Also, Calzaghe actually goes to the body pretty well, I remember Kessler saying Calzaghe hurt him to the body, actually.

 

They dont come much greater than Muhammad Ali & he rarely went to the body with any real force.

I personally think its very wise to go to the body at times, even a lot, body punches work wonders vs fighters that love to use their legs a lot & if your not much of a mover yourself, its certainly not a bad idea to work on those liver shots & slow them down, makes life a lot easier rather than chase the ***** all day long.

 

That was only in order to bring down Ernie`s high held guard to punish the head, he never put much force in those shots... Im sure the TS was referring to REAL body shots, the ones Duran, Chavez, Arguello & Frazier threw, the ones that take their toll & make you wish you`d taken up golf instead of boxing.

 

While everyone knows that Ali neglected the body and was still great, I do believe that it's difficult for most boxers to be effective without putting in some work downstairs.