Apollos Boxing tips – Intelligent aggression, the words ‘intelligent’ and ‘aggression’ do not seem like they go together but as some great professional and amateur boxers have shown in boxing history you can be both aggressive and intelligent at the same time!
Great professional boxers such as Joe Frazier, Mike Tyson and more recently GGG have made a good career from being intelligently aggressive, this style is not only probably the most crowd pleasing style but it is also very effective on wearing your opponents out and forcing them into mistakes.
The basic idea of intelligent aggression is to force your opponent or sparring partner to be constantly under pressure, think Mike Tyson in his prime he literally was all over his opponent from the first bell, this type of pressure not only forces your opponent to box at a pace they are not used to but also makes them panic and throw shots or move in a way they are not comfortable with.
To be intelligently aggressive there are a few high percentage techniques you will need to master which I have highlighted below –
Understanding ring craft – Ring craft is basically having an understanding of how to position yourself in the ring in a good position but to maneuver your opponent into a bad position, ring craft relies heavily on good footwork, as we are explaining how to be aggressive good footwork in this scenario would involve ‘cutting off your opponent’ basically this means not allowing your opponent space to move around the ring imagine you are a defender in a football match trying to stop the attacker getting past you, every time your opponent makes a move you match it and cut them off onto the ropes or into a corner. The advantage of this type of ring craft is that it give you the opportunity to trap your opponent and also whilst you are walking down your opponent they are doing the running and using up more energy than you!
Effectively using distance control – Distance control is understanding the space between you and your opponent and also controlling that space, there is always more than one way of doing anything but mainly distance control and management is again mostly down to good footwork, whilst cutting your opponent off you want to be close enough to cause them to panic but also not too close where your opponent could grab hold of you and relieve the pressure for a short time, we like to teach our amateur boxers to be roughly at a distance where you can touch your opponents lead glove. Effective distance control will allow you to dictate when the punch exchanges happen and also whilst just being on the edge of distance you can provoke your opponent to throw a shot too early and counter their attack.
Head movement – Head movement is a massive part of being an intelligently aggressive boxer, everything we teach at Apollos Boxing in Bolton is both tried and tested by our boxers but also tried and tested over time! We like to research old fights and old boxers and find out what techniques and strategies not only work but work at a high percentage of the time! Head movement is a great way to cut the ring off whilst defending yourself it also allows you to have both hand free to attack with. Most boxers are taught to throw the jab to keep off an aggressive boxer therefore a great way to get past this is to move your head similar to the boxers we mentioned above Mike Tyson, GGG and Joe Frazier. Taking the back foot boxers jab away is taking away the higher percentage way that is taught to keep off an aggressive opponent.
As you can see there is more to being an aggressive boxer than just walking forward taking punches and landing heavy shots yourself similar to the way Rocky Balboa spent the first two of his films boxing. We like to teach all of our boxers and MMA fighters how to be intelligent in not just attack but also in defense. All of the boxing techniques mentioned on this website and any technique you learn anywhere need to be practiced in either live boxing drills or live sparring to ensure you are correctly applying them and that they fit into your own unique boxing style!
If you are interested on learning how to box either to compete in an amateur, professional or white collar boxing match, to improve your boxing skills for an up coming MMA fight or even just as a way to get fit or lose weight then please feel free to contact myself for more information or to get booked in for a one to one boxing lesson or a small boxing group class.