caldo2025 wrote:Prince Hamed, Sergio Martinez and Roy Jones Jr.
Three very different styles but one main similarity is that all three fought 95% of the time with their hands down by their side. It surprises that more boxers haven't adopted this style. You obviously have to have premier speed to be successful but to me, I prefer this style over the peek a boo style that most boxers have. In the P-A-Boo, boxers are 100% defensive and no threat to throw back. I hate this style. With the hands down, you can return more effectively and counter easier.
Provodnikov fought using the P-A-Boo style against Molina for 8 rounds and got his clock cleaned. As soon as he dropped his hands, it was a different fight and he took less punishment while turning the fight around at the same time. He ran out of time and lost but it was eye opening how effective fighters can be by throwing the book out and open it up.
Provodnikov has sh!t boxing skills, bad results, and gets hit a ton -- so you wouldn't copy his style regardless of what he's doing. And more boxers haven't adopted the styles of Prince Hamed, Sergio Martinez, and Roy Jones Jr because they got hit, knocked down, and knocked out.
And you don't gain punching speed by dropping both hands below your waist... It looks really cool but you're just easier to hit... Keeping your hands up is basic science... Ricardo Lopez never lost a fight in over 50 fights and he was extremely disciplined about keeping his hands up... He was too fanatical about it in fact -- because you don't need extremes. But his offense wasn't slow and his defense was tough to penetrate.
Ali fought with his hands down and his defense was easy to break. He got tagged and dumped and lost a few fights to the few decent boxers he ever fought. Plus that, some fights Ali "won" he took massive amounts of punishment. Do you like to get hit??? Copy that style and you will. Ali used the peek-a-boo on the ropes -- and whenever it suited him he tried to hide behind his gloves -- but opponents riddled his defense because the peek-a-boo doesn't work ... 1st, the peek-a-boo puts tension on your arms making you slow... 2nd, you can't see a punch coming if your glove is obscuring your line of vision in any way... 3rd, how do you get your hands off is they're not in position to punch because you're being too defensive???
What works is having a great scientific stance with your hands in position to lead, block or counter.. What doesn't work is leaning, pushing, wrestling, and grabbing, because that's against the rules -- and it has nothing to do with the science of Boxing.. Klitschko couldn't get crap going in his last fight because he fought a much taller guy with much longer arms.. He's style was useless.. Lomachenko has fantastic results and has never been knocked down or hurt in over 400 amateur and professional fights. Maybe it has something to do with his stance, balance, footwork, hand position, defensive finesse, mastery of every punch, mastery of angles, and his ability to keep unique combinations rolling one after another if he's fighting somebody taller, shorter, or he same height. If you want to copy somebody's technique, you can't go wrong with Loma.
Valero certainly wasn't a Lomachenko, and wasn't a perfect boxer -- but he had better technique than 99% of the fighters out there. He used his feet well, defended well, didn't need to grab or hold, had a good arsenal of punches, could defend himself well and keep combination rolling. He fought Tony DeMarco all the way with a savagely slashed elbow cut that was bleeding like crazy. He refused to let his corner stop it because he didn't want a TD win.. He wanted a KO win to preserve his perfect KO ratio. That's a little nuts when you're bleeding like a stuck pig, but he was a perfectionist.
