“Interesting stuff, this time and measure. A child of mine who is a long time fencer (modern) added in judo and despite being inexperienced, smaller and female, is a total pain in the ass to fight against. They just can't get an angle on her to throw her. Maybe it is the fencing.
“Who are the modern fighters (boxers?) who exemplify good time and measure?”
-Nightboat2Cairo
The first thing you want to look at, to find time and measure in boxing, is a man absolutely committed to the jab. The jab is the boxing blow that derives—in the modern art—directly from fencing [small sword fencing, most similar to the modern epee]. No modern boxer has had a better jab than Larry Holmes.
Below I have posted an example of his most disciplined and horrific demonstration of how to beat the piss out of a dangerous dude with one weapon—all night long. I saw this fight live. Although Howard Cosell derided him as “a clown fighter” Randall “Tex” Cobb was a very dangerous man, a kick boxing champion who used to work the speed bag with his feet, was incredibly tough, and was expelled from Texas Christian University, where he played football, for firing flaming arrows at a female dorm house while screaming “die whores, die.” Due to the horrendous beatings he took in the boxing ring he was so ugly that he landed the part of the Last Biker of the Apocalypse in Raising Arizona. This fight caused Cosell to quit commentating on boxing. When asked how he felt about this, Cobb indicated that he could have done nothing—not even curing children’s cancer— more meaningful than shutting Howard Cosell’s mouth at ringside.
The bottom clip is a choreographed scene from Uncommon Valor that exposes Cobb as having a frightening level of athleticism for such a big man. However, in his fight with Holmes, the clutch factor was time and measure, and Holmes had both—forgive me Booker T. Washington—in spades.
In the first still see how Holmes is to the outside of Cobb's lead foot and that Cobb's rear foot is out at 90 degrees, making it hard for him to adjust to lateral movement, which is a common flaw among kickboxers. This position allows Holmes to fire his lead with power between Cobb's gloves while he gets further off line. Cobb is following him from the top down by dipping his rear shoulder, which is a common flaw among wrestlers and football players. The two primary elements of rear hand punching power are being able to torque the hip and push off with the calf muscle with the rear hand, and turning the shoulder into the blow. Lets say for a second, that Cobb actually gets his rear hand on Holmes. He has lost his leg and hip power because his lead foot is between his rear foot and the target. He has also forfeited his shoulder power by turning it in prematurely.
While Holmes seems to be standing even more square than Cobb, he is in fact in the superior position, with two hands against one.
Also note how relaxed and sloped Holmes' shoulders are, while Cobb has his shoulders shrugged. This causes tension in Cobb's shoulders, with the flexed Trapezius muscle breaking punch acceleration at the shoulder, while Holmes' rounded relaxed shoulders permit him to put his ass into each punch. Holmes hits much harder than he seems to. Any normal person would have been KO'd by one of his jabs.
JL, thanks for the reply. The posts where you comment on boxing videos are my favorites. That was worth watching even if only for Cosell's grumpy call.
I'm not a boxer but there were a couple of things I noticed - Cobb's hips seemed really square, like he was ready to unleash a kick from his rear foot. And where did Cobb get his energy from? At the start of each round he was up and at 'em. I was expecting him to slow down by the mid rounds.
Holmes was much more fluid and ready to unwind, and when he punched it was smooth and too fast for Cobb to handle.
The question that always pops up in these circumstances is what could Cobb have done differently, short of changing his boxing style? My naive guess would be to try to close more and lean on Holmes, like in your previous post where the coach was complaining about the ref letting the tall Irish guy lean all over the short guy. Then again maybe he tried to do that all fight and Holmes was just to good with the jab and too good setting the distance with his feet.
Thanks again.
Good eye. You can't go wrong watching hips and elbows in boxing.
I think Holmes was too savvy for the clinch. What Cobb should have done, was use that energy and those karate legs to fight in a peek-a-boo guard like Frazier or Norton. He would have probably lost, but would have landed some punches and made it far more entertaining.