WHY THEY BOXED LIKE THIS IN THE PAST

What are your thoughts on the Boxing style they used to do in the past? Watch next: Olympic Boxer Reacts to your Boxing Training Videos https://youtu.be/UOGk_Zc1UOY

From my research (for a college paper in an athletic trainer course), gloves were introduced when rich kids started boxing and didn't want marks on their faces. So the trainer had them wear an early version of a boxing glove. The research I found showed the glove disperses the force of a punch, reducing the likelihood of a knockout. However, because the fighter can withstand more blows to the head without being knocked out, the likelihood of brain injury from repeated trauma is increased.

Tony corrected himself the second time he mentioned it but when he first said 1983 he meant to say 1893

My grandfather was an undefeated amateur boxer with over 50 fights. He was born around 1905. My uncle said they used kid gloves, basically leather gloves with no padding. My uncle said my grandfather won with speed, head movement and knockouts by left hooks to the liver. That makes me think holding the right arm in close to the body was to protect this vulnerable area.

They got that “Why I oughta!” stance 😂

This is how they should teach history class

Old boxing matches were far more like modern MMA matches just fought in a sand ring(with far loose safety regulations) and lasted as long as the fighters wanted. Usually, it wasn't a well-organized affair and was locally arranged in carnivals and other public gatherings and it was also illegal in the US for a long time so it wasn't nearly as well known there as in Europe. Most boxing matches of the early 1800s were conducted under the "London Rules," which were based on a set of rules laid down by an English boxer, Jack Broughton, in 1743. The basic premise of the Broughton Rules, and the subsequent London Prize Ring Rules, was that a round in a fight would last until a man went down. And there was a 30-second rest period between each round. Following the rest period, each fighter would have eight seconds to come to what was known as the "scratch line" in the middle of the ring. The fight would end when one of the fighters could not stand, or could not make it to the scratch line. Theoretically, there was no limit to the number of rounds fought, so fights could go on for dozens of rounds. And because the fighters punched with bare hands, they could break their own hands by attempting knock-out punches to their opponent's heads. So matches tended to be long battles of endurance.

It's actually a really good stance if you're taller than your opponent or if you have a longer wingspan. My cousin is like 6'3 and does this stance. It helps him maintain a sort of distance against his opponent denying them the ability to reach in for a hit

This is very interesting ! It's interesting to see that when there was no gloves, the primary target was the body and grappling was involved, old boxing stances are astoundingly similar to old forms of karate. Also in old Muay Thai and Muay Boran there used to be stances like this, before boxing gloves became the norm.

Five things need to be mentioned additionally: 1) Stepping in with the punch was something that was a thing (you see it later with for example Jack Dempsey matches). 2) Other punches were permitted such as hammer strikes, back fists etc. 3) My two cents but feet were more firmly planted to generate more powerful blows while fighting bare knuckled (rather than swivelling on the balls of the feet for power generation, something which you can do with gloves more easily). 4) Vertical punches were far more common. 5) It's far easier to dodge punches while bare knuckle.

Around here, street fighters that learned to fight on the street - as opposed to learning to box and then transferring the skillset to the street - still use a similar kind of stance and principles (minus the leaning back, usually). It obviously works for gloveless, full-contact fighting, and in a quite natural way.

The golden age stance makes me think of fencing, with one hand extended towards the opponent like a rapier, and the other kept close to the body like a buckler.

Pretty good summary there. I have studied classical pugilism for quite some years now and you are on the money. Back in the day boxing more like Lethwei. You had throws such as the cross buttock to land your opponent on their head. You also had locks and chancery allowing you to hold your opponent and hit him. Key targets were the eyes since a blinded opponent - due to the knuckles - could not fight. The other target was the 'mark' or the solar plexus as we call it. You can hit full force to this so they had the rear hand there protecting it as it was the key knockout shot. Another one from the LPR days was a long hook impacting behind the ear with the large knuckles of the hand. Oh, and rounds were not timed. They ended when someone went down and then had 30 secs to 'come up to scratch'. You had a picture of Jem Mace as a former champion of England (Gypsy Jem Mace). He used to take bets in pubs that he could punch through the 1" thick oak door panels.....

Was randomly recommended this video and I gotta say - glad for it. Love boxing but also love your energy Tony, awesome vid man!

Strangers that are far from box: "Punching someone without gloves can cause damage to their head!" Pro boxers: "Punching someone without gloves can hurt my hands"

The part about grappling makes sense to me. Having your hands lower helps defend against take downs. You see a lot of mma fighters use a modified version of the left hand extended/rights hand chambered at the cheek. Dan Henderson was famous for it.

This stance still works exceptionally well: 1) Front arm for distance creation, stuffing forward momentum with a collarbone press/check, guards that side by position and distance, good for clapping an ear on a fallback step if they overextend with their own jab. 2) Rear arm is essentially always loaded and ensures your strongest punch from a pure physics perspective is always ready to go, protects all the bones of the thorax, can easily be dropped and turned to protect other rib cage from kicks and strikes, then immediately brought back leaving very little opening without having your opponent expose themselves well into your guard 3) keeps you in a very strong hiploading position, giving you the ability to always have a heavy kick threat and or knee ready to be delivered if they try to "shoot" your legs. With proper footwork and distance control, it's arguably better than a lot of even modern stances. This is particularly true when you dont have rules to protect you -- the modern squared up stance is really bad in a street fight because you loose all kick threat and it opens you up to being double-leg thrown or sweeped insanely bad, which, now that I think about it is basically how I've seen every decent boxer Ive known lose a fight, actually.

On the "lack of footwork," I think it was another optimization for the conditions. Fighting on sand or grass, you don't get the firm grip and level surface necessary to make modern style footwork effective. It's hard to even judge how nuanced their footwork was because we don't have 19th century tape. If something worked, they probably adopted it. We talk about the 'evolution' of technique over centuries as progress, but as you say, 90% of the difference is just changing context. I'd wager a few decades is enough for a vibrant community to bring the art to the point of diminishing returns, where the question becomes solely the talent and dedication of the athletes and trainers.

You should review the book Championship Streetfighting: Boxing as a Martial Art by Ned Beaumont. It’s a funny, quick read packed with interesting boxing history and an explanation of why boxers of old used the style they did.

Correct. And this is why the guard in eg karate still looks like this and why it protects the fist both with hand conditioning (makiwara) and favouring straight punches. It assumes no gloves. This is not well understood.