“Hey JL, don't know if you saw this already, Korean ex-pro takes out (?US army) tourist. Anything worth gleaning from it other than value of keeping hands up and not getting suckered?”
-C7
This is what usually happens when a poorly trained amateur middleweight spars with a pro lightweight and tries to hurt the pro. Middleweight Tony Cygan did this in the gym to a couple of light heavies who T’d off on him. Heavyweights will usually be cool sparring with smaller guys because they know what the deal is. But often, when mid-sized fighters who are used to being the athletic guy in the matchup start getting schooled by a small guy, they let their ego’s get out of control and get dropped. I have even done this to heavyweights in the gym and I was a crappy amateur welterweight with bad shoulders. These types of guys are generally disposed of using their own movement and bodyweight, as in this example.
The punch is a pass hook, often used by Manny and Ruslan, from the Wildcard Gym. It is an old school punch delivered with a shift step to the outside right as the sneak hook [thumb up being sneaky in boxing] slides between the gloves, although the gloves were not an issue here. Fitzsimmons used a body punch version of this blow to stop Corbett for the heavyweight title, winning that belt at 160 pounds! Stick fighters should study this punch in practicing their pass slash.
The amateur boxer was making every fundamental mistake except for turning away.
To begin with look at the still frame below and see how far forward his rear shoulder is, which takes away his rear hand power and opens him up for the power left. You can hook this guy without fear because the big fear of the hooker is that his wide angle shot gets intersected by a straight power shot, causing a collision that pits his jaw against your fist. That is not a worry when the rear shoulder is forward. If a guy with his rear shoulder forward leads with right hands he is ready to be taken. This is often caused by not finishing with a lead hand punch.
The biggest mistake was dropping the hands, followed by looking over the hands, which lifts the chin.
Making this worse was the fact that he was walking into, reaching for, leaning into and pushing off into every punch that he could, which meant all you had to do was get him to come to you to KO him. Then, once he had his man mugging in the pocket he switched to pure arm punches, which is where Tony would have knocked him out, most likely with a body shot.
His heavy forward movement was also interspersed with “getting on his bicycle” and bouncing his weight side-to-side with his hands down, just taking rest. Hooking a guy that is bouncing like this is a great idea.
It was a good controlled technique. I hate seeing big American tourists ripping punches at these brain-damaged little dudes with intent to harm, and am thrilled anytime one of them gets dropped.
Thanks for the head’s up
Thanks, James, for that detailed exegesis.
It's always amazes me that this level of analysis plays out in split-seconds in real time, but of course it's years of training, building muscle memory, learning from painful mistakes. Pro throws punch from palm down, hand down position while while distracting with his right, no doubt a good street technique if you're on that circuit. As with so many KOs, have to watch and rewatch many times to really see what's going on. Thanks again for your expert commentary.
I'll tell you, C7, I would trade my level of current expertise for a fraction of that knowledge when I was actually the dude getting punched! I was an idiot fighter until my 30s, when my body was so trashed I had to start fighting smart or quit.
There are a lot of things going on in this video, and the pro has a number of nuances, some of which I probably failed to pick up on. It's nice to watch a guy with pro level skill who is not pressed so that you can see him work slowly and pick things up. When guys at the same level go at it they cancel a lot of stuff out to the point we don't even see the one guy aborting an action because he can sense the other has read it.
It probably didn't hurt the pro guy that he had a full protective face shield/mask that also covered his chin!
(not trying to gainsay your analysis, btw, which is beyond my ken.)
It appears, that this is his work equipment, and it certainly did not hurt his cause any.
As far as head gear goes, it only has one purpose, to protect against cuts. It is easier to KO someone with head gear on for two reasons: the gear adds more stress to the neck by how ever many ounces it weighs and because the glove tends to catch and drag it, and the head can be punched with impunity. I, when I do box any more, will not use head gear for this reason. When I do spar I'm coaching, and the more stress on my neck from punches the quicker I get a sickening headache that will not quit, leaving me unfit to coach.
Doing this on concrete without head gear is deadly. Bare-knuckle fighters moved their business to grassy rings because of deaths resulting from KOs on cobble stones.