The Joe Cortez thread got me thinking more generally.
I suspect many of the answers here will simply be a matter of taste. Mine is certainly colored that way.
I like infighting far more than I enjoy watching two guys stand out of range, then one lunges in and that is the description of the fight. Crowding, clutching, grabbing to gain position to punch seems to me as legitimate as what has now come to be called "ambush boxing." I think what Roberto Duran did to Ray Leonard, what Marciano did to everyone, what Joe Frazier did to everyone but Big George, the way Henry Armstrong won three crowns etc. is as legitimate and within the rules as any other style.
My ONLY requirement is that the clutching, grabbing, shouldering, holding be done with a strategic purpose, preferably an offensive one. As long as one man is struggling to make the fight in a given situation, has one arm free or is trying to rip away his hands from being held? I think the referee ought to err on the side of letting the action go. Of course if both men go passive? Then one should call for a break. But if one guy is punching or trying to and the other is simply holding? The holder is the guy who should be warned.
One last thing on this topic. The fighters shouldn't be moved from where they are when a break is called. This even often happens along the ropes or in a corner and I see the referee shove the guy with the position advantage back towards the center of the ring to give the guy on the ropes space. Why? The guy with the advantage earned it, why is he being penalized? The ref should do the absolute minimum to get the fighters hands free and that's all.
What say you?
