Watch "Boxing with Wilson Pitts- Gym study of Bobby Watts" on YouTube

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3:15 PM (7 hours ago)... 9/1/21

to me

james how's the hobo life treating you?

If things were a little different I'd probably hop a train too.

I wanted to know if you have any experience with this combo and if you could expand on it maybe some pros and cons.

Be safe.

big ron

Well Ron, if I had a girl at home like yours, i'd still be in Harm City with you. I'm doing okay, harvesting berries and mushrooms and non-English-speaking companionship in the West.

Wilson looks a few years older than me and he'd probably beat me in a boxing bout.

Wilson describes how a standout fighter who dominated a gym he trained in in the 1970s, a straight-punching boxer, who waded through a gym full of peek-a-boo bob-and-weave knucklehead punchers winging hooks out of a crouch.

This was done most artfully by throwing the 1 [the left jab] straight from the shoulder and slow, so that it passed the crouch fighter's right guard.

That was the set up to draw the crouch-fighter in.

The retreating boxer, then slid back and threw an upper cut with the same left lead he had thrown the lazy jab-pass-feint.

Then, as the aggressor took the bait and came in, the stand-up boxer would nail the crouching puncher with a straight right on the chin that was lifted by the "can-opener" upper cut.

Non-boxers [because of seeing Mike Tyson dropped by a Buster Douglas with an uppercut] fail to frame the upper cut as a set-up punch instead of a knockout blow. For a KO, rotating the head with a hook or sending a shockwave through the neck with a right straight does more damage than tilting the brain with an uppercut.

I have not been able to use this combination. My hands have never been fast enough. So i'd short feint the jab to the outside of the opponent's right ear and then shovel hook, usually missing, but getting off safely.

I can fill in some blanks Wilson left in the gym.

When I was lucky enough to get some pointers from Irish Johnny Coiley in the early 1980s—he being a stand-up boxer—he taught me to throw a hook by jabbing at the opponent's rear ear, a jab aimed to miss, and then turning the jab inward as a hook. If one is to execute Wilson's combo described in this video, then learning how to hook off of and instead of the jab, as a mechanical edit, is a good start.

Second, what punch is being drawn. If the crouch-fighter is winging the right hook or overhand right, then going from lazy jab to lead upper cut will get you knocked the fuck out.

However, by throwing the jab slow enough at the right ear of the crouch fighter, if he has any training, he will shell guard his temple against a potential aborted jab turned into a hook, by pinning his rear right hand to his ear. So you are not dealing with that punch unless he is a pure goon.

As Wilson notes, this is a way to straight punch defeat a cagey hook puncher.

At the same time that this outside jab is keeping his right punch out of the game, your timid body language will encourage him to lunge in with a lead left hook, because such a slow jab tends to be used to target a hard right. If you are throwing that right going back and he is hooking coming in, he just needs to be a little faster to drop you.

But, you are keeping your right hand in guard to shielded your right temple and ear against his hook as you elevate his chin with your lead uppercut and then slam your right into his raised chin after you have shielded his left hook.

This is an excellent gambit. But, you do have to be sharper than your opponent to pull it off. This is not something that will work against a quicker or smarter fighter then you.

In a street situation, i suggest using the jabbing hand to check his shoulder [as he will only throw from the right] use the right guard to slap down his grab attempt and then throw the punch from the back of his grabbing hand you just slapped down, right into the chin you just lifted with your upper cut. In such a situation, you will just throw your upper cut from his shoulder, inward, more like a shovel hook, which will work even better than the upper cut, as you will rotate his brain twice, once with the inward shovel hook from his shoulder and once with the straight right.

For a tall guy like you dealing with drunks, this is an ideal gambit.

Take care, Big Ron.