Two question on FUNDAMENTALS, with reference to ROY JONES JR

I agree. Usually the technical fighters like Hopkins last longer because for the most part because they fight "by the book"(Hopkins also knows all the tricks in and out of the book the crafty guy lol). Natural guys like Jones only rely on god-given ability and as soon as they can't use that speed and lose that hunger their career's tend to get hurt. Power is god-given too but you can't ko all of your opponents when constantly stepping up opposition though and Hamed is a good example when showing this. He lost his hunger and though he still had power, the hungrier Barrera beat him.

True. Vinny was in a division he didn't belong in and especially in the ring with a fighter he REALLY shouldn't have fought. Good comparison with Joe Calzaghe but I've also noticed that his speed declined but he got away with it because he was to my knowledge never really threatened to the point where it heavily affected him. Calzaghe used his smarts to win fights past his prime though I think Hopkins won the fight between the two in an ugly fashion that was a torture to score but Hops makes just about everyone he faces look bad. The only exception I saw was with Jones. I always and still think my man Chad would be too smart & too quick & too fast for both fighters though I wouldn't count Hopkins out.

 

Jones' commentary shows that he knows the fundamentals of boxing very well, but simply chose a style that was most effective in drawing in and effectively hurting his opponents through ignoring certain basic rules. He didn't use a high guard or a consistent jab (at least in every fight; the Ruiz fight for example shows a good use of it), but that's part of the awkwardness that gives him an advantage. Jones had great footwork, punching technique/placement, feints, and defensive head/upper body movement. It's all there.

Just because he didn't pump out jabs or keep his hands up doesn't mean he didn't have good fundamentals- he just used an unconventional style that utilized a deceptive vulnerability.

 

I think you make a good point. I will say, though, that he never kept his chin down as well as for example Hopkins. And that is something you alway should do no matter what, it takes away so much vulnerability.

 

Good post,

 

I thought you bade us all adieu some time back.

 

I’ve see sawed my opinion on this many times

 

Rhythm, distance, timing. Those are your fundamentals — the atoms of the universe of combat.

Amount of Roy disrespect here as well smh.

 

The whole thing about his lack of fundamentals leading to him taking more punishment later when his reflexes slowed …

Post hoc ergo propter hoc — a logical fallacy that means ‘after, therefore because of.’

Yes, he took more punishment after his reflexes slowed. But so do most more conventional (which is what people are using in this thread to mean fundamental) fighters.

We’ve all seen classic stylists take beatings. Alexis Arguello got destroyed by Aaron Pryor (not a ‘fundamentally correct fighter) when he got a bit older and rose in weight, but his style was of the classical variety. Julio Cesar Chavez took his share of punishment but his style comes straight out of the Mexican boxing handbook. Matthew Saad Muhammad has a very traditional and sound approach but was in wars all the time where he often took more than he dished out until he wore down his opponent.

Having good fundamentals doesn’t make one impervious or even necessarily better defensively than a ‘reflex fighter.’

Roy’s punching form is solid. His ability to combinate is inhuman. His counters could be taught in boxing school — one example was how he timed Virgil Hill’s jab and came underneath it with a rib-breaking right to the body off it. He also created angles and his footwork to get in, punch and get out was solid. His feints were effective.

His approach was unconventional. So was Archie Moore’s and Michael Spinks’ with his herky-jerky rhythm. But Roy’s defensive problem was that his offense was his defense. You pretty much had to think twice about trying anything because the tradeoff was what he would come back with. Not because of his hand placement or eschewing the jab.

Interesting thing, as I saw many Roy Jones Sr amateurs as we were in the same generally territory and our fighters were often at the same shows — I and a few others picked up on that Roy Sr’s guys did a lot of their work off your jab. They WANTED you to jab and had effective counters off it. A guy who was fighting one of Roy Sr’s fighters was from a gym we were friendly with and he’d had trouble with this guy before. I wasn’t working the corner but he solicited my advice. Well in amateur boxing, the corners can’t talk. But a guy in the crowd can. So we came up with a simple strategy — he’d spend about half the first round feinting the jab or half-throwing it to see where the guy’s head was going to go. Then I started ‘coaching’ him from the stands and I’d yell ‘JAB JAB’ and he’d fake a jab and throw a right lead instead where that head was expected to go and he picked the guy apart and stopped him in the third round. It was almost Pavlovian — he’d hear ‘JAB’ and see jab (except it was a feint) and react to it.

Well it’s possible that Roy Jr was trained from an early age that the jab is something that gets you countered. In his gym, the other guy’s jab was a thing that triggered your offense. So maybe he also absorbed the idea that jabbing was ‘bad’ and thus he didn’t develop that. My memory of Roy Sr’s guys was that they just weren’t jabbers.

I think the only time I coached directly against him was when I had a big, raw-boned heavyweight who was probably like 8-1 and we fought Roy Sr’s new heavyweight — he was 5-0 with 5 stoppages and a lot of people began avoiding him. They reached out to us about matching up at a big Fourth of July show that was at the time a pretty big annual show on our circuit. My guys was pretty much a rough brawler. But he was a southpaw. So part of my thought was maybe those guys wouldn’t be trained to counter a jab coming from the other side as much. I had my guy double-jab the whole fight and we set out to never give an inch and just back him up the whole way and we won the decision pretty easily.

 

Roy was a boxer since he could walk. Unkind to discredit him as nothing other then “Talented”

 

That's it, Ali like Roy used reflexes and speed to avoid shots instead of slipping punches and countering. I was shown you never pull straight back because you'll get hit but these guys had that ability. But as you so accurately pointed out when you get past 30 that becomes harder. Ali still had a great chin that allowed him to still fight, but Roy? His chin got cracked when his defense failed.

 

If Roy had lacked fundamentals, he would’ve been Jean Pascal with a worse chin.

 

I think people tend to just see the fundamentals as the stereotypical, slick amateur with his hands up, chin down. Really picturesque shots with good timing while in range and tend to immediately omit guys who broke rules from the "good fundamentals" group. It's understandable where this mentally can come from - especially in people have boxed, sparred, and generally trained but never competed. Because trainers push fighter to make sure they step with a shot and keep their base, and all the stuff that they should teach. The reason why is just to maximize the quality of the result of whatever they're teaching and to minimise the risk as much as possible. You can tell a kid to throw his whole body weight with as much load up as his little arms can muster and then tell him to swing it wildly while running forward with the most exaggerated weight shift you'll ever see, but it won't land and therefore becomes useless, and not only does it have a 0.1% chance to land, it essentially puts the kid in a prime position to get KTFO'd. I suppose if I was to give a brief definition of the fundamentals, it'd be: the most optimal way to maximise the effectiveness of a movement without accentuating the risk of performing it. Something which can't be separated from the fighter's style - something fundamental. It can be anything that needs to be taught. Head-movement, punching form, wrestling/clinching, infighting, outfighting, footwork, feints, guard, parrying, blocking, shifting weight, etc.

In a sense, it's fairly individual as the movements which offer the best risk/reward ratio won't be the same for all different limb lengths and leverages. Different things such as glove size, weight, padding, ruleset or fight length, etc. In short, I think the fundamentals of boxing is a really broad term and can change definition over time.

In my head, skill encompasses a lot more than just the fundamentals, though. Roy Jones Jr is actually a perfect example of what I mean. Often times there's more to a skill than knowing the correct way of doing things. How many times at work do you skip over the proper procedure to do something you KNOW is quicker and/or more effective because your experience in the past has shown you. Jones probably could box like a guy straight out of the Kazakhstani amateur system, but he knew he didn't have to. He knew exactly what'd mess with people if he didn't do it. Hence the lack of a steady jab, hence the use of his back hand to establish ring generalship, hence the super low lead and hence the reflexive based defence. It wasn't all that it was more effective, it just that, he knew he could. But, I would argue that just because Roy broke some of the rules in the sense that he often didn't do things in the most optimal way, doesn't mean that he didn't have great fundamentals. When Jones was serious and not clowning around, he didn't break nearly as many of them. His preferred risk;reward was simply further towards reward because he knew he could get away with it.

There's also the spontaneous, fancy ****. I tend to think the best way of summing this up and differentiating it between simply, high level fundamentals, is that it's something which is made up on the spot from experience; knowing what will happen. A guy like Jones did a lot of this; think of how he set up the uppercuts against Vinny Paz; or the crazy long leaping hooks he got Griffin, Toney and Hill with.

Another facet of skill is simply overall awareness. Eventually over time you'll pick up on lots of little tell tale signs without actively thinking about it. A highly experienced fighter would be able to read patterns and habits in a guy and then instinctively use them. Knowing what works and what doesn't, and being aware of when to implement it, is a facet of being skilled in my opinion. Sometimes these techniques are instinctual and is just someone who's good at fighting. Knowing when to get away with fouls, wrestling, or knowing when to press the action and when not to can all be grouped here, I feel. I think it also should be mentioned that you can definitely get guys who can't do this but still have great fundamentals. I suppose a guy like Sung-Kil Moon - or better yet, Rocky Marciano - is an example of a guy who doesn't have the classic "hands up, chin down" fundamentals, but they have this in absolute bags. The perfect video of this the Modern Martial Artist's; although I do think he perhaps exaggerates the thought process. I am 100% certain Rocky was not thinking like that in there. An example of the opposite would be young Jesse Rodriguez, today. Brilliantly talented, unbelievable fundamental skill but perhaps a little naive and wet behind the ears. Actually, Lomachenko fits this mold quite well, too. A good example of a recent fighter with both would be Andre Ward.

The most skilled fighters ever have all of them. Think Duran, Robinson, Mayweather, Leonard, Whitaker, Olivares, etc.