Per Capita Southpaws

[IamInuit]

In the old days you turned a fighter around, a lot of it being because it was hard for a leftie to get fights. that is why hagler learned to fight both ways. Now, there is a thing among boxing trainers to let a guy go with what is natural, so you see more lefties. But a lot of that is laziness/ignorance on the part of trainers and i think it hurts the quality of boxing overall because, in general, you don't become as skilled a fighter as a southpaw as you could have otherwise.
that comes down to a misconception about what is important for a fighter. A lot of guys turn southpaw because they hit harder/more comfortably with their left hand, so they box that way and their front hand never gets developed. but here is the thing...In boxing, 80% of the work is done with the front hand, the jab, the hook and so on. The back hand catches, blocks, parries, and sometimes punches. So there are a lot of guys, even upper level pros, that don't use their hands well, they look to potshot the left but don't jab well, don't hook well. They end up being very limited as fighters.

One thing very common with successful converted lefties be it those mentioned or Tyson, Cooney, Basilio, Cotto etc is the left hook. Devastating. Winky and Andrade are two guys that were born right handed and fight left which is much more rare.

It the early days southpaws were actually thought to be retarded and many doctors considered it a birth defect.

[p4pking]

In the old days you turned a fighter around, a lot of it being because it was hard for a leftie to get fights. that is why hagler learned to fight both ways. Now, there is a thing among boxing trainers to let a guy go with what is natural, so you see more lefties. But a lot of that is laziness/ignorance on the part of trainers and i think it hurts the quality of boxing overall because, in general, you don't become as skilled a fighter as a southpaw as you could have otherwise.
that comes down to a misconception about what is important for a fighter. A lot of guys turn southpaw because they hit harder/more comfortably with their left hand, so they box that way and their front hand never gets developed. but here is the thing...In boxing, 80% of the work is done with the front hand, the jab, the hook and so on. The back hand catches, blocks, parries, and sometimes punches. So there are a lot of guys, even upper level pros, that don't use their hands well, they look to potshot the left but don't jab well, don't hook well. They end up being very limited as fighters.

One thing very common with successful converted lefties be it those mentioned or Tyson, Cooney, Basilio, Cotto etc is the left hook. Devastating. Winky and Andrade are two guys that were born right handed and fight left which is much more rare.

It the early days southpaws were actually thought to be retarded and many doctors considered it a birth defect.

As a southpaw myself I'm afraid I can't definitively refute this

Good point on the left hook, you can tell Ward has about as much power in his jab as any other punch he throws as well. Didn't know that about Winky or Andrade, but having just watched him that makes perfect sense. His jab is about his only good punch by the seems of, and his feet are all over the place. He looks exactly like a really athletic guy trying to fight the wrong way, I wonder why on earth he decided not to stay orthodox.

[greynotsoold]

In the old days you turned a fighter around, a lot of it being because it was hard for a leftie to get fights. that is why hagler learned to fight both ways. Now, there is a thing among boxing trainers to let a guy go with what is natural, so you see more lefties. But a lot of that is laziness/ignorance on the part of trainers and i think it hurts the quality of boxing overall because, in general, you don't become as skilled a fighter as a southpaw as you could have otherwise.
that comes down to a misconception about what is important for a fighter. A lot of guys turn southpaw because they hit harder/more comfortably with their left hand, so they box that way and their front hand never gets developed. but here is the thing...In boxing, 80% of the work is done with the front hand, the jab, the hook and so on. The back hand catches, blocks, parries, and sometimes punches. So there are a lot of guys, even upper level pros, that don't use their hands well, they look to potshot the left but don't jab well, don't hook well. They end up being very limited as fighters.

One thing very common with successful converted lefties be it those mentioned or Tyson, Cooney, Basilio, Cotto etc is the left hook. Devastating. Winky and Andrade are two guys that were born right handed and fight left which is much more rare.

It the early days southpaws were actually thought to be retarded and many doctors considered it a birth defect.

As a southpaw myself I'm afraid I can't definitively refute this

Good point on the left hook, you can tell Ward has about as much power in his jab as any other punch he throws as well. Didn't know that about Winky or Andrade, but having just watched him that makes perfect sense. His jab is about his only good punch by the seems of, and his feet are all over the place. He looks exactly like a really athletic guy trying to fight the wrong way, I wonder why on earth he decided not to stay orthodox.

There is also a strong dose of evil inherent in being a southpaw; I have long been an advocate for drowning them at birth. hagler and moorer were also right handed guys that chose the dark side.
I think that there is something to the dominant eye theory, sort of. I do everything right handed, the only thing i can do with my left hand is punch. And I can shoot from the left side, because I see better out of my left eye. But punching with my left hand was a learned skill and had nothing to do with my left eye and a lot to do with a ton of hours in front of mirrors and on the bag in the garage.

[Beanflicker]

I love converted southpaws, I think it's a great advantage. If you utilize the jab, it's the most important punch in boxing, so in that regard it can be a big advantage to have your strong hand forward.

Hagler being the best example, where by being a converted southpaw, he could really use his jab as a battering ram.

[Beanflicker]

Bruce Lee was also a strong supporter of putting your power hand in front.

[Master]

I am right handed but when I started boxing I naturally went southpaw because I wanted my strong hand to be constantly punching the face of the opponent.

However I went orthodox and perfected my jab and hook with the left hand and could never go back.

Southpaws are easy to beat, never had any problem with them freaks of nature.