raylawpc wrote:Rick Farris wrote:raylawpc wrote:
As a general rule, I prefer a balanced straight-up boxing stance, feet comfortably apart with the weight on the balls of the feet and about the same amount of weight on each foot. One should feel balanced and able to move easily.
A Jackie McCoy trick & Dempsey . . .
Tom, I pretty much balanced things between both legs. But Mando Ramos taught me something years after both our careers were over.
Jackie McCoy had his boxers, who were all major league punchers, put a little more weight on the back foot.
They could still throw punishing jabs, but when they thru rights, they'd shift the weight from the back foot to the front.
This puts the weight of the whole body into the punch.
When I teach today, I teach what Jackie taught. I tried it out, it put more power in my punches.
Jack Dempsey would use what he called a "Falling Step", to put his weight into a punch.
He'd throw a right with out moving his left leg forward until the last second. If he didn't step forward, he'd fall on his face.
His body would instinctivly move the left leg out before he fell, with all that forward momentem behind the punch.
McCoy had a "back-to-the-future" approach. Fighters from Jeffries era kept their weight on the back foot too (although these old-timers were more radical about it. Look at photos of Fitz, Johnson, etc. and you can see how they shifted their weight to the back foot.). That changed during the Dempsey era. My personal opinion is that keeping the weight distributed evenly allows better foot movement, so perhaps there is a trade-off.
Since we are talking "old school", here's something from 1928, written by the great Grantland Rice:
THE SPORT LIGHT by Grantland Rice
[1928.]
Walter Monahan on Punching.
Sometime ago Gene Tunney offered the suggestion that few present day boxers knew anything about the science of hard punching. Walter Monahan backs him up. Monahan trained, or tried to train, Willard for the Dempsey slaughter but no one could make Willard take that scuffle seriously until Dempsey hit him. Monahan later on worked Tunney Tony at Miami Beach with the light and heavy bag and now, with training schools at South Hampton and Newport, Monahan has all about all the trade he can handle in teaching the young or old idea how to thump.
"Few fighters," says Monahan, "know anything at all about getting their weight back of a punch or using the right snap. They cuff or slap or jab but it doesn't mean anything. They know little about scientific hitting, and there is just as much science in hitting as there is in boxing. They might have studied Dempsey. He never was a boxer, but when it came to backing up a punch he pivoted like a golfer. He would come up on one toe and throw his entire right or left side into the wallop."
"Should the shoulder and body travel with the punch or swing in back of it?" I asked Monahan.
"The body should swing in back of the punch just before the moment of impact. There is a shoulder and body snap as well as a wrist snap. No one who uses only his hands and arms without any shoulder or body support can ever amount to anything as a hitter. And it is surprising how few of the best-known boxers know anything at all about the main features that are responsible for punishing blows. In my opinion, Monte Munn is naturally one of the hardest punchers I ever saw, but he needed more boxing schooling and experience to use this power."
Punching and Gameness.
"Dempsey," I suggested, was always willing to throw a punch without any particular thought of self- protection."
"It takes a game fellow to be a hard puncher," Monahan added. "Few understand how punching and gameness go together. If a man isn't the dead game he is thinking more along defensive lines than attacking lines. He is thinking more about protecting himself than about hurting the other fellow. Nobody can think in two directions at the same time. When Dempsey saw an opening he left one fly with all he had, leaving himself wide open when he missed. But he didn't miss so often when he was younger and faster.
"I worked a lot with Gene Tunney." Monahan continued, "and while he isn't a knock-out puncher he knows how to punch, how to use his weight and he hurt you a lot more than any spectator might think. I'd call Tunney a smart hitter because he can jar you and jolt you without taking the chances Dempsey took. Tunney could be at slugger if he ever wanted to let himself go, regardless of the defensive side. There are a lot of fighters willing to take a chance but they don't know how. They are like a 200 pounder slicing a golf ball about 150 yards into the rough."
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