Rocky Marciano-5'10"-reach-68", Joe Frazier-5'11.5"-reach-73", Mike Tyson-5'11"-reach-71"—-3 of the most devastating punchers of all time, all with short arms, not overly wide across the shoulders, and of course short reaches.
-Armand
Great Points, Armand.
The link to the article under discussion is at the bottom of the page.
These three have short reaches, but strong shoulders anywhere south of a power lifting setting. Frazier—I think—had the narrowest shoulders for his build of these three.
The more skill and synchronicity a fighter has the less the shoulder width matters for power punching. Also, a fighter with wide shoulders and bad hips might very well fail to use those wide shoulders to his advantage.
All three of these greats operated tactically at high energy levels to get into their range. It is harder for fighters of this build to maintain this output as they age. The guy with the longer arms and wider shoulders has a head start, but has some drawbacks too, which is why the entire measurement scheme should have been retained and not ultimately reduced to ridiculousness by HBO.
Frazier and Tyson rarely used the straight right hand [did Frazier even throw one?], which is the punch that derives most advantage from broad shoulders. See Ali's still of him punching Foreman [another example of the longer-lived, rangy, wide-shouldered boxer] with the rear hand and how his rear shoulder has been engaged. That is the effect I am talking about and is what a fight manager generally prefers to begin with, as a rangy fighter will have a longer career and haul in more loot. Of course, his nemesis is this compact punching machine you have so well represented with your three examples and cannot be ignored.
However, the compact puncher is the exception, not the rule. An example of a compact puncher with wide shoulders, but also great hips, that used a killer right hand, is Duran. Another example is Roy Jones, who over-used this natural gift and had his dominant longevity cut short due to his reliance on his natural attributes.
Tyson and Rocky had cannon ball shoulders; not wide, but compactly strong and not easily damaged [unlike the wide-shouldered men like Razor Ruddick who tend to develop shoulder injuries.] All of these three greats had thick hips. Shoulders that are more in line with the hip width make synchronizing hip and shoulder torque more precise. Note how often narrow-shouldered fighters favor the shovel hook, which does just this, transferring hip torque [enabled by the close elbows]. This is the favored power punch of many fighters with strong legs and smaller shoulders.
Of course, wide-shouldered, long-armed fighters tend to tire easily and are often hard to coach, where guys with stature disadvantages like the three you mention get the value of training effectively impressed upon them early on.
With widely spaced shoulders, yes, you have more rear hand reach and more leverage when you hip torque. But, you have a bigger chest target, and a guy with a strong jab like Holmes, Mercer, Foreman or Samuel Peter, could easily foil and tire such a fighter with chest jabs. One of my fighters has shoulders so wide that it is a liability, for this very reason.
In ancient Greece, where jabbing was at more of a premium than in the modern game "a sturdy thigh" was considered the most important attribute of the boxer. During this period, sculptures of champion boxers favor strong but not wide shoulders, with longer arms and thicker hips as the hand gear they used permitting KOs with the jab. Conversely, paintings of "amateur" Athenian boxers from the same period [450 B.C.] show the big shoulders, which matters more at lower skill levels.
The source of the power with such short-armed punchers is based on training and natural ability, with their shorter arms helping them calibrate the punches' landing more precisely than a rangier fighter. Punchers of this caliber throw punches that often seem slow [I know, Tyson never seemed slow-handed, which made him doubly scary and I believe he would have eaten the other two alive in his prime] and somehow crush people. Conversely speedy punchers often lack stopping power. These facts would seem to fly in the face of physics, with velocity treated as a force multiplier, until you consider that their punches speed up at impact even as a quicker puncher's strike often slows at impact.
Thank you, Armand.
