The best defensive fighters carry their hands low?

[Spartacus Sully]

When your bobbing and slipping and weaving its really hard to kep your hands up and with your hands lower you can bob and weaver alot faster with the lower center of gravity.

id say alot of its just bad training and the increased upper body movement speed it allows.

though the old old old fighters (like corbett and fitzsimmons) that would keep their hands low would mainly use it to trick some one into a counter or get your opponent to lower their hands to block a body shot while you throw a very time consuming right swing to their jaw.

[Steak]

it has nothing to do with "Which is the better defensive technique", its just appropriate for the situation. Every one of those defensive masters you named have used BOTH techniques with multiple variations throughout their fights. people generally just remember ducking and slipping more.

and the reason a lot of defensive masters prefer to carry their hands low is this: body punching. your head can still move out of the way of punches, but if your body is not covered, you cant do anything.
although there are other reasons as well: making a guy miss tires him out more than blocking his punch, a blocked punch often can still hurt through the guard, better countering opportunites,etc.

a regular guard is more reliable(even the guys with the best head movement have gotten clocked bad while moving their head before), but ducking and slipping is a more risk-reward payoff.

The best defensive masters used both at the same time.

[mrboxer]

i think the best defensive technique is a good counter puncher,mind yo uthe slip and roll,and the block can be effective as well i would choose the counter punching style