In watching Erickson Lubin and Chris Eubank Jr. get blown
out in consecutive weeks, I've confirmed a belief that I've held about boxing
for many years. With a hat tip to Bill Maher, it's time for a New Rule in
understanding boxing. The Rule is as follows:
Any fighter who voluntarily lingers on the ropes during
the early rounds of a fight has reduced his or her chances of
winning.
There are a couple of key points to parse here. Let's start with "voluntarily." What I am stating is when a fighter has his or her back to the ropes by choice, by design. It's not being forced to the ropes because of relentless pressure or recovering from punishment. It's a fighter deciding to dictate the terms of the fight by laying on the ropes early in a bout, when opponents are at their strongest.
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| Eubank with has back against the ropes Photo courtesy of Mark Robinson/Matchroom |
It's my belief that fewer than a handful of fighters at any given time in boxing can win fights with their back against the ropes even in the best of circumstances. It is one of the toughest skills in boxing to master in that a fighter's mobility is significantly limited. Among active fighters, Dereck Chisora is one who has displayed an ability to win fights from this position. But often, Chisora has done his best work with his back against the ropes later in fights, when opponents are diminished or have endured their own punishment (such as Carlos Takam or Joe Joyce).
So, in the best-case scenario, there may only be a couple of
fighters who can win fights with their back against the ropes, and that is
later in bouts after their opponents have endured several rounds of action.
Yet many fighters somehow think that they will be successful in a disadvantageous
position against a clear-minded foe.
I believe that there are two reasons a fighter goes to the ropes
early:
- The
fighter is physically diminished (Lubin and Eubank fit this
category).
- The fighter believes that he has a strategic advantage (think Floyd Mayweather
against Marcos Maidana in their first fight).
The first category is self-explanatory. Both Lubin and
Eubank had tough recent fights where they didn't look at their physical best.
Their behavior in going over to the ropes against Ortiz and Benn, respectively, confirms
that they didn't believe they had the physical capacity to go 12 hard rounds in
the middle of the ring. In short, they were telling on themselves. They needed
a crutch even before the going got tough.
The Mayweather example is instructive and one of the few
times that he got his strategy wrong in a fight. I'm sure that Team Mayweather
noticed things on tape regarding Maidana, how wide he could be with his shots,
how open he could be to counters. They probably thought that going to the ropes
would be a simple way to inflict damage because of Maidana's crude offensive
forays.
They were wrong.
Instead, Maidana went to town on Mayweather in the early rounds. Mayweather fell into the classic counterpuncher's
trap of trying to land perfect counters while the aggressor was banging away on
a stationary target with power shots and volume.
Eventually, Mayweather junked the strategy and wound up
winning the fight in the middle of the ring. But that fight is an essential
example in understanding boxing. With his back up against the ropes, the best
fighter of his generation couldn't beat a capable opponent in that position. If
it can't be done by Mayweather, maybe you shouldn't try it either.
Looming in the background to all of this is Muhammad Ali's
famous "rope-a-dope" strategy, where he was able to defeat the
heavily favored George Foreman by spending most of the fight punching off the
ropes. No doubt this is one of the cornerstone fights in the history of the
sport, and perhaps Ali is the only heavyweight who could willingly endure that
much punishment to win a battle of wills along the ropes against such a fierce
opponent.
But two things to consider about the Rumble in the Jungle:
Ali didn't start the fight on the ropes; he had a very good first round using
the entire ring. Also, Foreman's pressure was unrelenting. In the early stages
of the fight, it was Foreman who drove Ali to the ropes. By the end of the
second round, it seemed as if Ali had made the decision to hold his ground along
the ropes instead of burn off more energy using his legs.
The Ali-Foreman performance is essentially the exception
that proves the rule. Perhaps the greatest heavyweight of all time was able to
execute that strategy, but even then, he absorbed a ton of punishment. If the
decision was so fraught for one of the best to ever do it, perhaps a lesser
fighter shouldn't think about doing it early in a bout.
So, to sum up, if you see a boxer go to the ropes on his
own volition early in a fight, it's not a good sign. He or she either has made a
strategic/tactical mistake or physically the fighter isn't right. And sure, if
we watch boxing closely over the ensuing decades, we might find another
exception or two. But I've seen a ton of boxing over the years, and going
over to the ropes early isn't a winning strategy. You can call Ali the
Greatest, but call everyone else something different – someone who's about to
lose the round, or the fight.
