What If Joe Frazier Used The "Peek-A-Boo" Techniques?

Actually IMO Tyson would have benefited from trying to emulate Fraziers style

 

Naah. :nono

Smokey Joe's style involved way more headmovements And punch-output than Tyson's.

Tyson did NOT have teh great stamina to emulate Frazier.



Foreman Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooook!:smoke

 

This.

Even Joe would have told you that while his right was serviceable, he loved his left hook. Throwing right hands didn't feel natural to him. He crafted his style to allow him to throw his left hook as often as he wanted, because that wasn't just his best punch, it was his favorite, and thats important when crafting a boxer.

McGrain also emphasises that Frazier's up down head movement was a perfect compliment to a left hook. He counters off his movements to great effect.

I believe his style included defense to a better degree than Cus' distinctly flawed peek-a-boo. Fighters fighting out of it load up extremely heavily on side angles and 45 degree steps. Its frankly pretty easy to time, so peek-a-boo fighters get hit, quite a bit. They just get terrific torque on circular punches, and against fighters who are slow, or a good degree slower, they can take an angle and get a shot off on an open target.

Tyson and Patterson were lightning, and thus well served to take advantage of their fast hands and feet this way. Joe was a slower guy with a different kind of power and approach. He would have gotten destroyed by quite a few guys he beat if he tried to turn it into the footwork and angles battle that the D'Amato peek-a-boo demands.

For a record, I love Cus as a trainer and a coach. I met him, I saw him work with guys, he was really quite incredible. I just see holes defensively in some of his techniques and go to moves.

You know your technical boxing, McGrain. Do you train fighters?

 

XPERT post m8. :thumbsup

Smokey Joe had proper mint balance - Tyson ALWAYS had balance issues, so he could NEVER move forward organically with flowing PRESSURE like a strong current of a rushing river, as Frazier did relentlessley. :!:


Foreman Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooook!

 

I would like to add; that Frazier did have a good right hand. I've seen a good few of his fights recently (within the past 5 months) were I noticed at least one or two of his knockdowns during the fight.. came off of a short crisp right hand to the jaw followed by his left.

He of course threw the left way more... but I feel like he knew everyone knew that.. so he worked it into his game plan that people expected him to be an almost 1 handed fighter.. scoring some KD's for him.

 

Something not mentioned yet is that like Smoke, Uzcudun had an early injury to his left arm which prevented him from straightening it out, resulting in Paulino adapting with a cross armed posture. Depending on the precise nature of the childhood injury to his own left arm, adopting the peek-a-boo may simply not have been practical for Joe, even if he aspired to mimic Patterson.

While providing some commentary during Torres-Cotton, Carlos Ortiz mentioned that he himself was against the peek-a-boo. Certainly the cross arm had a more substantial history behind it, thanks to Moore, Uzcudun and Max Baer. (Maxie may have learned it from Paulino. Are there any action photographs or footage of Max using a cross arm prior to Uzcudun-Baer?)

 

I don't think so. Frazier employed his style of bobbing and weaving out of a crouch, and so he needed more visibility and priority protection of his chin by his gloves. Had he adopted a peekaboo guard, I feel he would have lost the ability to work effectively out of the clinch on the inside, and been even more vulnerable to uppercuts. Tyson had a lower center of gravity and bent his knees more, so visibility and upper body exposure wasn't as much of a liability for him, and he didn't often work out of a clinch.

 

Tyson said in this interview that his style was not like Joe Frazier's. People used to always compare young Tyson to Smokin' Joe during his prime.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VYrj2DxqdY[/ame]

 

I think with smaller fighters with a smaller reach it's imperative that you get to the second phase of fighting as quickly as possible.....Tyson did this brilliantly in his prime by using head feints and quick footwork..then got on the opponents chest, then worked inside.

Frazier cut the ring off by shucking and jiving, but he also blocked punches whilst coming in...he didn't have the footwork to employ the peak a boo style but put educated pressure by cutting off the ring. When in the second phase of fighting he was deadly with his hook to body and head.

 

Fraziers guarding stance wasn't paramount to his incredible success. If he'd have learned to be proficient with it, he would have thrived with the peek-a-boo as much as his old guard. He lost to two men while relevant, it's nearly impossible for Frazier specifically to improve upon that.

He fulfilled his potential as fully as any man.