Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time.
Michael Gerard Tyson is an American professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 2005, and is scheduled to compete once again in 2024. Nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and later known as "the Baddest Man on the Planet", Tyson is regarded as one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990. Tyson won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. Claiming his first belt at 20 years, 4 months, and 22 days old, Tyson holds the record as the youngest boxer ever to win a heavyweight title. He was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles, as well as the only heavyweight to unify them in succession. The following year, Tyson became the lineal champion when he knocked out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds of the first round. In 1990, Tyson was knocked out by underdog Buster Douglas in one of the biggest upsets in boxing history.
Floyd Patterson was an American professional boxer who competed from 1952 to 1972, and twice reigned as the world heavyweight champion between 1956 and 1962. At the age of 21, he became the youngest boxer in history to win the title, and was also the first heavyweight to regain the title after losing it. As an amateur, he won a gold medal in the middleweight division at the 1952 Summer Olympics. He has been named among the top 15 heavyweights of all time.
A jab is a type of punch used in martial arts. Several variations of the jab exist, but every jab shares these characteristics: while in a fighting stance, the lead fist is thrown straight ahead and the arm is fully extended from the side of the torso. This process also involves a quick turn of the torso. It is an overhand punch; at the moment of impact, the pronated fist is generally held in a horizontal orientation with the palm facing the ground.
A bolo punch is a punch used in martial arts. The bolo punch is not among the traditional boxing punches.
Constantine "Cus" D'Amato was an American boxing manager and trainer who handled the careers of Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson, and José Torres, all of whom went on to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Several successful boxing trainers, including Teddy Atlas and Kevin Rooney, were tutored by D'Amato. He was a proponent of the peek-a-boo style of boxing, in which the fighter holds his gloves close to his cheeks and pulls his arms tight against his torso, which was criticized by some because it was believed that an efficient attack could not be launched from it.
A hook is a punch in boxing. It is performed by turning the core muscles and back, thereby swinging the arm, which is bent at an angle near or at 90 degrees, in a horizontal arc into the opponent. A hook is usually aimed at the jaw, but it can also be used for body shots, especially to the liver.
Kevin Rooney is an American boxing trainer. He was portrayed by Clark Gregg in the 1995 movie Tyson and by Aaron Eckhart in the 2016 movie Bleed for This.
Footwork is a martial arts and combat sports term for the general usage of the legs and feet in stand-up fighting. Footwork involves keeping balance, closing or furthering the distance, controlling spatial positioning, and/or creating additional momentum for strikes.
Buster Mathis Jr. is an American former professional boxer who competed in the heavyweight division. He held the regional IBF-USBA Heavyweight title, winning the belt in 1994, making two successful defenses until losing to Lou Savarese in 1996.
Throughout the history of gloved boxing styles, techniques and strategies have changed to varying degrees. Ring conditions, promoter demands, teaching techniques, and the influence of successful boxers are some of the reasons styles and strategies have fluctuated.
In combat sports such as boxing and MMA, an orthodox stance, also known as a northpaw stance, is one in which the fighter places their left foot in front, thus placing their left side closer to the opponent. Because it places the right side in the rear, the orthodox stance can allow for more rotation and distance to accelerate right sided strikes, in turn generating more power. This makes it the most common stance in boxing, as well as MMA, and primarily used by right-handed fighters.
In boxing, the "one-two combo" is the name given to the combination consisting of two common punches found in boxing – a jab followed by the cross. In boxing parlance, fundamental punches are commonly assigned numbers by trainers and in this case there is the jab (#1) and the cross (#2).
In boxing, bobbing and weaving is a defensive technique that moves the head both beneath and laterally of an incoming punch. As the opponent's punch arrives, the fighter bends the legs quickly and simultaneously shifts the body either slightly right or left. Fighters generally begin weaving to the left, as most opponents are orthodox stance, and therefore strike with a left jab first. Common mistakes made with this move include bending at the waist, bending too low, moving in the same direction as the incoming punch, and squaring up. To be able to bob and weave, the boxer would need good reflexes in order to accurately see the punches coming.
Bobbing is one of the basic strategies of defensive boxing, executed by slightly moving the head to either side so that the opponent's punches slip by the boxer's head. The slip is used to evade swings, jabs, and straight punches. It can not be used with hooks as they move on the side level. Using slips is valid but risky with uppercuts since the punch is usually too close when the defender can determine the exact line of the punch. To overcome the hooks problem, the defender usually incorporate slipping with ducking
The uppercut is a punch used in boxing that starts low and travels upwards vertically aiming at the opponent's chin or upper abdomen. It is, along with the cross, one of the two main punches that count in the statistics as power punches.
Joseph Hadley is an American retired boxer from Jackson, Tennessee, who competed in middleweight division in the 1970s, one of a few trained by Cus D'Amato himself, and also one of the first documented U.S. mixed martial artists. He was selected a member of the All-American AAU boxing team for 1973, and was named the top middleweight amateur boxer in the nation in 1973 by the National AAU Boxing Committee. Hadley drew attention of the press and public by carrying a Bible into the ring, hence his nickname "Preacher," which reflects he actually was a minister. For that reason Hadley refused to pose for a picture with Muhammad Ali, "because Mr. Ali does not live tip to my principles according to the Bible."
"Irish" Bobby Stewart won the National Golden Gloves Tournament in 1974 as a light heavyweight. He also fought at the US-hosted undercard of The Rumble in the Jungle as a professional boxer, but he will be best remembered as the first trainer for Mike Tyson, who discovered Tyson's tremendous potential and introduced him to boxing.
Non-compromised Pendulum is a book about the fight system of the boxing coach Cus D'Amato, known as a peek-a-boo. The book, written by the Ukrainian scientist and martial arts researcher Oleg Maltsev and D'Amato's mentee Tom Patti, was published in the English language in 2018, which can be accessed by anybody free of charge, to preserve the legacy of Cus Damato.
Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson faced each other in two heavyweight boxing title fights. The first fight was held on September 25, 1962, and the rematch on July 22, 1963. Liston knocked Patterson out in both fights, in the first round each time, winning and defending the championship in dominant fashion.
