“How's it going, James,
“Could you give me a breakdown and what you think of Hearns jab and possible street applications.”
“Thanks.”
- Ronald
Ronald, thanks for this video clip.
Hearns is a fighter I should have addressed in more detail before. Thanks for the nudge. Hearns is built for the jab, the poster child for the jab-dependent fighter body type. However, he was a hunter killer, the lead fighter for the Kronk Gym, of Emanuel Steward, who believed first and foremost in the KO. For this treatment I will work only from the video clip you have sent.
Okay, Ronald, we see four specific jab applications here.
The one stressed by the producer of this video in freeze frames is called, pawing or measuring in boxing, stiff-arming in football [Jim Browne used to KO dudes with this on the gridiron], checking in stick-fighting and cross-facing in wrestling. For the tall man this is a prime range control tool. Against Benitez he needed it to score the right hand as Benitez had such good head movement, just as Ali used it against Frazier. The measure is a counter to active head movement as it can slide down to the neck and limit head movement or to the shoulder and limit body movement. If you are the short fighter and the measure comes [this is a foul in amateur boxing, and supposedly in the pros also] forget head movement, move your ass off line to the outside of his jabbing [measuring] hand.
In the early going against the overmatched twerp fighter, Tommy is using a sneaky jab and sneaky jab-feint to set up the shovel hook. Not turning over the jab, but sending it out thumb up, makes faking it and then ripping the shovel hook easier on the shoulder and more deceptive.
He is shone using the flicking pronated jab just to get range on his right, to calibrate for a right hand lead, although he doesn’t pop off with it in this video.
At 1:40 note how he has the twerp stiff-armed with his wrist on his neck and the stubborn little dude is not stepping off left but resisting. That is the beginning of the end. Tommy nose that this guy is game, so at 2:00 he puts that paw out and measures with the end of the glove against the man’s shoulder, because he knows he’s going to crack the twerp and doesn’t want his own glove in the way, and since the opponent is offering resistance, to the measure Tommy uses it to tense his opponent up for the kill. Remember that a pawed jab stuck on your chest or shoulder is an invitation to get tough and resist so that you can be separated from your senses. This guy needed to step drag left, but stayed and paid.
In the final example, against the slicker, tougher Benitez, Tommy has to slide the measure all the way down to about the elbow. Once the target is riding on the tricep you can’t hit it. However, once the target is measured with the forearm instead of the wrist, what was a straight right needs to be a cross, and so Tommy crosses the shit out of Benitez, who was very tough –too tough—and ended up eating baby food and screaming at the walls.
For you boxers, stick-fighting and knife-fighting will help in that kind of situation, when amplified mobility is required.
As far as street applications, this is what almost every big man who wants to punch does, grab you with his left and hit you with his right. Shorter punchers tend to sucker punch and then wing with both hands. For street applications I like this measuring hand as a passive restraint, keeping the threat at arm’s reach, and then hoping he breaks off, but if he doesn’t, making sure your crack him before he breaks contact on the inside of your measuring elbow. Actually, once he slides forward down to your elbow, you could just drop it on his shoulder and use it as a sprawling lever. If you are using this extended restraining hand, the worst thing that could happen to you is that he ducks left under your hand into your power hand while he stabs you. If he ducks left, figure on that. If he ducks right figure on a waist tackle. If he steps off or back, maybe cooler heads will prevail.
link › youtu.be/iz8TN3yAh50
I always despised that pawing jab. If someone did it to me my first idea would be to punch through it. Also it I can touch my opponent with a paw shouldn't I hit him withit?
The only guys that can get away with it are tall, and they need either finesse [Ali] or heavy arms [Klitschko] to make it work, so it is not taught as standard.
I like the idea of siting in the right hand using scoring jabs, rather than pawing, as you suggest. However, if you are tall and worried about the guy getting inside, then the pawing jab is safer, provided you have that freakish reach and some sick power in the right hand. It is the same rational as using a checking hand rather than a palm thrust, as the checking hand, as with the pawing jab, while not very effective weapons, grant some measure of outer range control and can serve as a post that the other fighter must work around.
Keep in mind that this is a foul in the ring, although it has been liberally permitted by many referees.
The one thing that Hearns does do in this video that I would recommend for all kinds of fighters, is early on when he feints the sneaky jab and goes to the shovel hook off of it.