Circling

Very often you'll hear people say of a fighter who moves and uses the ring that he is "boxing" with the assumption that just because you move around youre a smart thinking boxer. This is false.


To start the ring is square shaped which means that to move around in it without stopping ( i.e back touches ropes or corner) you must be moving in a circle. Thus by circling you ensure that you can maintain movement constantly without having to stop and reset because your back touched the ropes or because you got stuck in a corner. As I said earlier just because you do circle it doesn't automatically mean that youre a good boxer and that youre fighting smart. The first thing you need to ask yourself is just why is it that youre circling in the first place. Very often fighters will do it just to do it not realizing the effects that doing this creates.

The first question would be why do I need to move in the first place. Why not just stand in front of my opponent where we are both perfectly in range of each others punches. By circling you are constantly keeping yourself just out of range, thereby forcing your opponent to come forward in an attempt to maintain his punching distance. This accomplishes a couple things:

1. It forces your opponent to reach with his punches. Because you are out of range you force your opponent to compensate for this distance by over extending himself to reach you. By making him reach with his punches you make him vulnerbale to counters. Remember that it takes less than an inch to miss a punch which means that its wasteful to be several feet away from your opponent. When circling its not required that you run like mad just to make a guy reach: watch Joe Walcott.

2. By being out of range you reduce the number of punches your opponent can throw. This is because you are too far to be reached with a jab, too far to be hit with uppercuts which are ultimately inside punches, and you take away the possibility of combination punching. This limits the punches your opponent can lead with down to left hooks and right hands. In other words he becomes very predictable.

Ultimately your opponent is forced to come towards you with overextended punches -- predictable overextended punches. The dinner table is set for accurate counterpunching.

Think about that for a second and you'll realize why bernard hopkins can still fight at 40+ and why he has never been cut in his career and probably why he will retire without brain damage. Then ask yourself just how you would fight Hopkins knowing that he is going to circle away and walk you into traps. How would you beat him?

Hey Thomas,

I can't think of much weaknesses of Hopkins. A lot of times he fights out of a wide stance, and you can see when he gets set for some of his shots. But most of the time he's circling, jabbing, and setting up his shots.

I'll try to tackle this one the best that I can. For one I'd try to stay out of range and see if I can make him lead so that I would have a better shot at countering. This is how Hopkin's fights, so I can't see myself outclassing him in that department.

What I noticed when was watching Rocky Marciano take on Archie Moore, is that Rocky was able to upset Moore's rhythm. It wasn't so much Rocky's unorthodox punching as it was his punching rhythm that kept on increasing to the point that Moore could not keep pace with. All Archie Moore's guile, and experience and determination wasn't enough for that fight.

I guess if you could take away Hopkins tempo through sheer punching volume, while fighting in a style like Julio Cesar Chavez that put together with everything else may make it possible. The question then is how long can you keep Hopkins off rhythm? Am I making any sense?

How would you take him?

Thats an interesting take on Hopkins. what I tend to notice from Hopkins (and yes he does stand very wide) is that he will typically lead in with shots from outside. That is that he circles away and looks to lead in with rights while constantly feinting to the point where it is nearly impossible to tell when he'll throw. It makes him so difficult to fight because he rarely counterpunches (which is one of the few momements you'll be able to catch him; at a moment when he isn't circling) and circles away. in essence what ends up happening to a lot of fighters is that they will follow him around the ring completely frozen and unable to start up any kind of attack because they never know when or what he might throw at them. What is so ingenious about his strategy is that he rarely counterpunches. Rather, when opponents elect to punch he simply circles out of range. Because he won't stand and trade, his opponents get left in the dust, reduced to eating cheap pot shots round after round. By following him around, it is ironically this that allows him to get away with what he does.

What made swarmers so effective against counterpunchers throughout the history of the sport was their ability to counter the counter. Take for example Marciano's ko of Joe Walcott. Review the tape and you will see that Rocky throws a jab that Joe tries to counter with a right hand. Rocky lands that famous right hand on Joe's cheek as he was throwing the counter. When Joe threw the counter it instantly exposed him to right hands. Since his body was committed to the act of punching he could not simultaneously get out of the way. In essence, rocky's jab prompted a counterpunch out of walcott creating a window of opportunity for that famous right. Its so subtle that its easy to miss if you're not paying attention. i should also note that nearly all of the great knockouts of the sport come when a fighter gets punched while he is trying to throw a punch himself. Its because it not only catches him moving into the shot, but it also catches him unexpectedly because when one punches he tends to be in an "attack mode" and never thinks to factor in that he could be hit during this.

basically my point is that it is never wise to follow a guy around the ring like a schmuck. whether you are a guy who likes to use the ring or a guy who like to come forward what remains constant is that in order to land your punches you must 1. somehow make sure your opponent is in punching range and 2. once there, find a way to create an opening in his defense. very tricky stuff.

So with that said I would try to make hopkins throw with me. Because Hopkins rarely counterpunches I would find great difficulty in trying to get him to stop and punch. I would try and circle away and to my left in an attempt to make Hopkins the aggressor. By doing so I can bring hopkins to me instead of trying to go out and catch him.

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Originally Posted by Chris N.

What I noticed when was watching Rocky Marciano take on Archie Moore, is that Rocky was able to upset Moore's rhythm. It wasn't so much Rocky's unorthodox punching as it was his punching rhythm that kept on increasing to the point that Moore could not keep pace with. All Archie Moore's guile, and experience and determination wasn't enough for that fight.

I guess if you could take away Hopkins tempo through sheer punching volume, while fighting in a style like Julio Cesar Chavez that put together with everything else may make it possible. The question then is how long can you keep Hopkins off rhythm? Am I making any sense?

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Perhaps so with Moore, but with hopkins you will have a fighter who will not stand in front of you. This means that you will not be able to use combination punching. He will always be just outisde of your range removing the prospect of beating him through a high punch output. In other words a high punch output cant be effective if he isn't there to be hit with it.

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Originally Posted by ThomasTabin

Perhaps so with Moore, but with hopkins you will have a fighter who will not stand in front of you. This means that you will not be able to use combination punching. He will always be just outside of your range removing the prospect of beating him through a high punch output. In other words a high punch output cant be effective if he isn't there to be hit with it.

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You're right there, I should have thought about that aspect of it. So swarming is out of the question because Hopkins avoids exchanges and doesn't like to lead. A guy like Trinidad becomes frozen because he can't create any opportunities by just following him.

Anyways let's say we're staying out of his range, circling to our left trying to make Hopkins commit/lead. Like you said he's usually feinting, picking his shots and staying out of range. This is frustrating just thinking about it, but how do we get him to throw anything?

If I just jab or punch because there's nothing else I can think of, he'll just step out of the way. If I give him a target for bait, I'm still not sure I can counter him because of trouble I'd have with his feints. It's hard to time a punch when you're not sure what's coming.

The plan would be to get him to come to us. This is tricky because this would mean we'd have to beat him at his own game. My best bet would be like you said, to capitalise on any let-up in his circling, stay away from him and see if I can feint or draw him in so I can be in range. Hopefully at that point I'll have opened him enough to hit him before he clinches or moves away.

On another note, how do you work these stratagems into shadowboxing. Say you're shadowboxing a guy like Pernell Whitaker, or Bernard Hopkins for matter. Would you approach it the same way you would if you were fighting them. I guess then I'd work on circling, feinting and drawing them in. I'd have to watch their fights again so I can see what other tendencies they have so I can also prepare for them.

Anyways this is good stuff to mull over. I appreciate it, I'd like to see more of this kind of stuff. :)

The thing about circling is that in order to be hit your opponent has to lunge in with the punch or else he will come up just short every time. So through this I accomplish one of my primary goals in that I have put Hopkins in range since whenever he wants to punch he has to lunge into me. From here things become complicated. I know hopkins wants to throw leads: either left hooks or right hands. He may jab a bit but ultimately he will be looking to jump in with these punches. I want to counter these punches but because Hopkins likes to feint I don't want to use slipping counters. Slipping counters are counters that are triggered by your opponent's tip offs (the movement he makes to tip the punch). Grey has a couple threads outlining these counters. The reason I dont want to use them is that because they rely on the tip off they make you vulnerable to being feinted out of position. Hopkins feints so much that I would end up hitting at air if not getting myself countered alot of the time. But i still want to counter him. There are two types of counters that are thrown, not at the tip off, but after the punch is blocked. To my mind they are actually the foundation to all counterpunching and they are very important punches to learn. One of them counters a right hand, the other counters a left hook, and because they are thrown after the block I don;t have to worry about getting feinted out of position by imaginary punches.

The counter to that left hook goes as follows. You take his left hook on your arm and as his punch lands you turn your body (if orthodox to your left) so as to roll away from the punch. By doing this you will simultaneously load up your left hook. All left hooks are counterable by the left hook. This is because by throwing the left hook the body will turn in such a way which causes a clear opening to the chin that a left hook can travel down. For simplicity I call this counter a 'block' counter.

The counter to the right hand is one you're probably familiar with. You roll it on your shoulder and and in so doing you load up on your right. Similar to the left hook, rights are naturally counterable by rights. If youve ever seen this counter thrown you will notice that the other guy always falls face first into it. You have the moore/marciano fight right? ;D I call it the roll counter for obvious reasons.

These two counterpunches are like brother and sister. I've been meaning to make a thread about them for the longest but never got around to it.


To re-cap I want to make Hopkins jump into me so I can catch him with these two counters. To get a mental image of what I'm talking about watch Mike McCallum fight. He fights exactly like this. a lot of the futch fighters do actually. That is that their styles ultimately revolve around these two counters. They are that critical.


It sounds like I've detailed a great deal here but ultimately all I did was circle away and use these two counters in response to the punches I've forced Bernard to throw. He has to throw them because I wont let him have anything else.

Now (and here is the most important thing to understand) that this is established I cannot expect Bernard to just keep coming in so I can counter him. Bernard is not a dummy. He will see what I am doing and he will adapt, and he has a few options at his disposal. For one thing those two counter punches I was talking about are themselves counterable. The roll counter can be countered with a follow up left hook and the block counter can be counterd by a right hand after you block the left hook and begin to throw yours. Maybe Hopkins will stop coming in at all and just elect to stay outside and look busy with jabs and feints. Have you seen the Barrera/Marquez fight? I strongly recommend watching ti because verything I've just said here happened in that fight. Barrera came out circling and waiting for marquez to jump in with shots. He used the block counter almost every time he could. Marquez is a smart kid and in realizing this he started throwing that left hook to trigger Barrera's block counter and using this to land his right hand. This would cause Barrera to mostly jab and move for the rest of the fight. Watch it yourself and tell me what you think.

Well anyway the key point I hope people take from reading this is that boxing is cause and effect; move and counter move. It is precise and logical and therefore should be approached in a precise and logical way. Bernard Hopkins is a great fighter but ultimately he is just a man like me or you. If one man can become great then so can any other.

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Originally Posted by Chris N.

On another note, how do you work these stratagems into shadowboxing. Say you're shadowboxing a guy like Pernell Whitaker, or Bernard Hopkins for matter. Would you approach it the same way you would if you were fighting them. I guess then I'd work on circling, feinting and drawing them in. I'd have to watch their fights again so I can see what other tendencies they have so I can also prepare for them.

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In shadowboxing just remember that no boxer fights out a fixed strategy. Fighters (any fighter of any worth at least) will constantly be adapting as needed. So remember that any strategy you practice against an imagined opponent is more like reference material. For example you can imagine a scenario where pernell whitaker is doing x which can be answered by y. By rehearsing this in your mind, you can pick up on it in the real fight as you see it happen and you will know how you should react to it as though you've done it a thousand times before. The more you know about a fighter the better you will be at fighting him.

As far as shadowboxing goes this is as far as you can take it, since you cant create a thinking and adapting opponent in your head.