Discipulus
Black Belt
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- Oct 5, 2011
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So shouldn't you utilize these big gloves that modern day boxing have since that is what we wear in compeition? Wouldn't that be the most optimal way to train if you're training boxing? Big glove, small glove, either way, a high guard, incorporated with good head movement, foot work and defensive techniques is still the most ideal style for most people, but maybe you're different?
Under what logic? I named 3 fighters as examples, RJJ, Hamed and Gamboa, are these guy's not ****y when they fight? In which part of what i said states that any fighter who has his hands low is automatically a ****y fighter? All i said is that i enjoyed watching fighters with a certain style, and those fighters happen to have their hands low. Jesus do you have to be so goddamn defensive against every single poster that disagrees with you?
Gloves are smaller in boxing competition than in training. You can get too used to being able to keep punches out with a pair of 16 ozers on your hands, and then they start sneaking through when your guy is hitting you with 10s on.
Also, this kind of stuff is especially useful for MMA, because those gloves don't do a damn thing to block punches when you shell up. You basically have to cover the whole front of your face with your forearms to make a tight guard effective, and that opens you up to hooks and body shots galore, as well as seriously limiting your vision.
That's one of my main gripes with the guard as a means of blocking incoming punches. It blocks your vision to hold your gloves like that, especially so with the bigger boxing gloves. The other main gripe is that it completely nullifies your offense, which in turn puts more pressure on your already compromised defense, because a smart opponent will catch onto your habit of covering up, tap your gloves with light punches, and then angle off and smash you with a right hand in the side of the head. You can't stick a jab out there to ward someone off when you resort to covering your face for defense.
It also results in a version of "sparring partner syndrome," because you'll see guys with this as their primary defensive reaction fighting in patterns. You punch, I'll block your punches. When your combination is finished, I'll punch and you block those. Maybe one of us will get lucky and knock the other out. I hate seeing fights where guys basically stand in front of each other and take turns trying to throw punches through their opponent's gloves, rather than boxing them. That stuff is not good boxing, plain and simple. And I see it as a byproduct of relying overmuch on a high guard for defense.
Oh, and I respect the fact that you're a pretty cool-headed guy in these heated online arguments. Nuke does get a little defensive a little too quickly, but in his defense, just about everyone who comes into his critique threads immediately disregards his request in the first post and tells him to put his hands up. It still happens, even after like six or seven threads. I can imagine getting irritated and a bit oversensitive at that.
While I get that some guys like the low guard for the added movement/they can relax some it just seems like one of those things (this might be a logical fallacy so I am sorry ahead of time if this is wrong) that when you are young... it's fucking great. However, it also seems like one of those tendencies that when you get older, and your reflexes begin to slow or your chin becomes shot that it will just leave you out on a silver platter to get stomped.
Like RJJ is one that comes to mind as a guy that got away with having a low guard for a long long time and did well. And then he started getting "over the hill" as an athlete and we have all seen what happened. I know there are older guys like Vitali (41) can get away with it but most of them have a jab so damn nasty that it keeps people away/scare to swarm in it seems.
Again, I might be looking at this the wrong way but it seems when you start out learning and such to start with a higher guard (chest-chin level so to speak, not necessarily up by the temples) so that when your reflexes begin to slow there is an option of a more protective style to fall back on.
The exact same thing happens to guys who rely on their gloves to block punches. The solution is not to hold one's gloves higher, but to learn how better to defend yourself with positioning, footwork, and other tools like a good jab. This is why cagey veterans armed with a couple decades of accumulated ring smarts (think Mike McCallum, Sugar Ray Robinson, Bernard Hopkins, Juan Manuel Marquez, Jersey Joe Walcott, Archie Moore) are able to dominate younger opposition, without holding their hands up high. They're all students of the game, and they have styles that maximize their defensive abilities.
It's all about your stance, your weight distribution, and your position relative to your opponent. You learn to control these things, and you'll never have to shell up for defense.
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