WLAD Vs JESS WILLARD, Who Wins, 15 Round Super HW, Fight

[Jim Jeffries]

if your opponent is shorter than you, you can line your punches up with your hips. At what point in time do you punch downward against an opponent your height??

there is no magical body mechanics thing you are talking about. fact is, legs creates the hip movement, core sustains it the best it can, and its released through the arm and fist.

higher up the longer the force has to travel. As i said before, if you have a very strong core you can sustain it better, as well as having a shorter core (less travel).

You get in the ring, anyone will tell you, hitting a shorter opponent hard is easier than a taller one.

ANYONE will tell you that.

I get this feeling you are trying to twist it and confuse things though to cover up for your error.

We're not talking about ease of hitting someone, we're talking about generating power. And a great deal more power can be generated punching at shoulder level and above than punching down, I'm afraid. Though as Steak indicated, there has to be an extreme height differential for someone to punch down to their opponent, unless they're going to the body.

[MajorKong]

Willard would be a punching bag in this fight. It would be brutal and over by the 8th round.

Lewis might take Carnera out in the first. That wouldn't even be remotely competitive.

Lewis KOs Wlad after a boring, safety-first fight.

I doubt it goes more than 4 rounds. Wlad destroys him like he did Ray Mercer.

Lewis vs. Wlad could go either way, but I'd lean towards Wlad.

[New England]

We're not talking about ease of hitting someone, we're talking about generating power. And a great deal more power can be generated punching at shoulder level and above than punching down, I'm afraid. Though as Steak indicated, there has to be an extreme height differential for someone to punch down to their opponent, unless they're going to the body.

in boxing generating power is about hitting an opponent.
anything else is an abstraction

generating power is exactly what he's talking about, against an opponent or a heavybag

and it gets more difficult (to generate power, i E hit somebody hard) going above the shoulders

but not more difficult going under them. if you throw a right hand at a target that is lower than your shoulders you can generate MORE POWER.

not until you start throwing them very low (say lower than your elbow at rest) will you start to lose power

this guy has been in the ring a lot
it's pretty evident by the way he talks about boxing.



any trainer in the world will tell you that you generate more power punching at a downward angle with your right hand than you will punching up (ie at a taller opponent)
and fighter will tell you likewise



if you guys wont listen to our argument (and wont head to the gym and hit stuff//opponents yourself to figure it out on your own [or get hit by a right hand from a taller guy..]) then the next step is to find evidence elsewhere (say the testimony of a fighter, trainer, longtime boxing expert)

which i can certainly do if the need pops up.

power is about the transferral of weight. that's what does the damage the (work / time)

weight wants to go down, not up.

you wont find anybody in boxing backing up the notion that you lose leverage punching shorter opponents // lower targets because it's just not true


really, to learn this stuff, all you have to do is head to a tall speedbag (say six inches above your head) and hit it with your right hand
and then do the same thing with a speedbag that is only shoulder height

if it doesn't make sense, repeat the process. working against gravity like that will rob you of power.

i hate calling people out but you guys are way off on this
way off

[New England]

you literally have no idea how the body works if you believe that. Ive already given you a detailed analysis of how power is transferred through the body, but no, youll just ignore that I suppose, and stick with an unfounded assumption that punching downward automatically creates more power despite the fact that extra strength from the legs and stabilization from the back is not fully utilized. great.

I even provided you with a perfect example of Hearns, who does not punch downward despite his large height advantage and lowers his shoulder level to below Duran's head. but sure, lets ignore it, because you already have an idea in your head that you wont budge from. excellent.

bro you're really missing the ball on this one.


he doesn't need your analysis
he's 21 years old and sparring regularly


you learn this stuff in the ring, hitting taller opponents and getting hit by them.
and hitting your targets in training (mitts, bags, etc)


to be completely honest, if you read that post at the gym you'd probably get a lot more funky looks than you would "you know you're right on this one, you lose power punching a lower target//smaller opponent."

i'm not trying to run anybody down, here, but this really is something you figure out after hitting stuff many times, especially during your youth when you learn the best.
it becomes intuitive.


and hearns is generating power w/ the right hand by transferring weight from his back foot to front, and exploding through the target at the moment just prior to impact or just before that weight gets to his front foot.


the weight moves forward, toward the front foot, but it doesn't make it to the ground yet. it wants to go down to the ground. it takes work to lift it and to keep it there.
the hand strikes the target and transfers the weight to it before it gets to the front foot.

thats how you throw a right hand and generate power
if you abandon technique and max out your right hand the only way to punch harder is to come off a mound, allowing for a transferal of extra weight over extra space

tahts why a pitcher throws off a mound
he uses gravity (the will of his body to get back to the ground after he takes a forward step off of the mound) to move the ball forward, no matter if he's trying to beam somebody or throw the ball in the dirt


i'll certainly get sources to back me up if you need them. to be completely honest, it wont be hard. no text on boxing will tell you that you lose leverage punching a shorter opponent or target (unless the target is excessively low to the ground, and it's illegal to dip your head below your opponents waist anyway)

hell, if friday night fights was still on you can hear teddy atlas talk about "the leverage on the right hand from a tall guy" at least once per broadcast it seems
this is what he's talking about.

[Greatest1942]

david "toe-breaker" haye


"barefoot" david haye


what an awful way to go out. i hope he enjoys all that money (who wouldn't?)



i'm picking wladimir in this fight
much more technical
so much more technical
did i mention the technique?

jess "the giant" willard is going to be jess "the slightly smaller and weaker man"
the guy didn't really have a ton else going for him. lots of experience. fought in some long fights.

jab jab
right hand... ehhhh maybe just the jab
hold. sit down and take a one minute break
and back to the jab

speak about nine languages in post fight interviews
take some pictures with your brother

have we seen this fight before?


i think we've determined that the ways to beat klitschko are to either:
knock his head into the fifth row and take advantage of the chin (liston, tyson, foreman)
use footspeed and outwork him (ali, holmes)
or grind him down and get to his body(frazier, norton, holyfield, marciano)

willard isn't going to do any of that
he's going to try and do what he's done against every guy he's ever fought, and "fight a big mans fight"
he'd plod with wladimir, and get picked part with the jab, and the hook off the jab

he'd look a lot like a modern klitschko opponent and probably lose a decision
if he couldn't get out of the way of the right hand he'd probably get stopped

firpo and dempsey do not hit anywhere near as hard as klitshckos right hand.

p4p maybe
but that doesn't mean **** in the ring at HW

I agree that wlad should win a decsion...

But saying Willard would be weaker...man you are exxagerating , and i doubt you know of Willard's strength.


Big Jess tossed around 500-lb. bales of cotton, I doubt he will be physically "weaker" than Wlad...he had immense functional strength. Punching power? Sure I agree Wlad is a much better puncher.

[New England]

I agree that wlad should win a decsion...

But saying Willard would be weaker...man you are exxagerating , and i doubt you know of Willard's strength.


Big Jess tossed around 500-lb. bales of cotton, I doubt he will be physically "weaker" than Wlad...he had immense functional strength. Punching power? Sure I agree Wlad is a much better puncher.

nobody who has ever lived can "toss" anything that weighs 500 lbs, brother.
that would wear your back down to nothing. there would be no boxing involved int he picture if you did that regularly.

500 lbs is a life altering amount of weight... it does not get tossed. that sounds like the exaggeration to me.

back to the matter at hand

williard had less than two inches of reach on him. they were about the same height,
at his best (leading into the fight with jonnson, also in the fight against dempsey,) willard never weighed much more than 240, making he and wladimir nearly identical in size.)



i don't think me saying that a wladimir would be "slightly stronger" than jess willard would be a stretch or an exaggeration at all. id like you to tell me why you think it would be.


i think the stretch is you assuming that a giant man from the past is somehow guaranteed to be stronger than a giant man from the present with ten times the talent and nearly identical size.

why wouldn't they be at least comparable?



want to know why willards strength is so "legendary?" he was fighting in the 1910's
he was bigger than everybody else!!
is it just some coincidence that he was not only larger than all of the men he was facing, but also stronger? of course not.

what's going to happen when he's not bigger than these other guys?

he's not likely to be stronger (unless jess willard is some kind of superfreak athlete, which he clearly was not. the guy was minimally talented outside of his size)

it's outrageous, in my opinion, to believe that jess willard is somehow this superhuman of physical strength regardless of the size of the men he's going up against

why wouldn't a guy his size negate his physical advantages he had over smaller opponents?



it's willards opponents size that made him special (to the very small degree to which willard is special. you get that this guy isn't much more than laughing stock//freakshow in historic boxing terms, correct?)

he was fighting before the depression
men of his size were almost unheard of at the time


his advantages would disappear once he got into the ring with somebody his size
and that includes his strength
i don't see why that's hard to comprehend in the least.

[Steak]

in boxing generating power is about hitting an opponent.
anything else is an abstraction

generating power is exactly what he's talking about, against an opponent or a heavybag

and it gets more difficult (to generate power, i E hit somebody hard) going above the shoulders

but not more difficult going under them. if you throw a right hand at a target that is lower than your shoulders you can generate MORE POWER.

not until you start throwing them very low (say lower than your elbow at rest) will you start to lose power

this guy has been in the ring a lot
it's pretty evident by the way he talks about boxing.



any trainer in the world will tell you that you generate more power punching at a downward angle with your right hand than you will punching up (ie at a taller opponent)
and fighter will tell you likewise



if you guys wont listen to our argument (and wont head to the gym and hit stuff//opponents yourself to figure it out on your own [or get hit by a right hand from a taller guy..]) then the next step is to find evidence elsewhere (say the testimony of a fighter, trainer, longtime boxing expert)

which i can certainly do if the need pops up.

power is about the transferral of weight. that's what does the damage the (work / time)

weight wants to go down, not up.

you wont find anybody in boxing backing up the notion that you lose leverage punching shorter opponents // lower targets because it's just not true


really, to learn this stuff, all you have to do is head to a tall speedbag (say six inches above your head) and hit it with your right hand
and then do the same thing with a speedbag that is only shoulder height

if it doesn't make sense, repeat the process. working against gravity like that will rob you of power.

i hate calling people out but you guys are way off on this
way off

A punch is a very different thing than throwing a ball. You will hear EVERYWHERE that its better to punch from behind your shoulder and not down, and to your entire body into the punch.

Gravity is a very small thing when it comes to a punch, because you want your entire body weight in it. Havent you ever heard of 'following through' with a punch to cause more damage? That means pushing through it with your legs and back braced. And I hate to break it to you, but its literally impossible to force your quadreceps to generate power angled down, since that muscle can only extend, it has no flexion unlike the hamstrings.

look at any of the hardest straight right hand punchers.

Hearns' shoulder is below Duran's head level.

Arguello follows the punch through his shoulder level, not downward

Remember how Trinidad used to dip down to meet his opponent often, before reaching up with a left hook? Notice how the right behind follows through on his shoulder level when he throws a powerful right hand? Despite his usually height advantage, his shoulder would almost always be about the head level of his shorter opponent.

[McGoorty]

bro you're really missing the ball on this one.


he doesn't need your analysis
he's 21 years old and sparring regularly


you learn this stuff in the ring, hitting taller opponents and getting hit by them.
and hitting your targets in training (mitts, bags, etc)


to be completely honest, if you read that post at the gym you'd probably get a lot more funky looks than you would "you know you're right on this one, you lose power punching a lower target//smaller opponent."

i'm not trying to run anybody down, here, but this really is something you figure out after hitting stuff many times, especially during your youth when you learn the best.
it becomes intuitive.


and hearns is generating power w/ the right hand by transferring weight from his back foot to front, and exploding through the target at the moment just prior to impact or just before that weight gets to his front foot.


the weight moves forward, toward the front foot, but it doesn't make it to the ground yet. it wants to go down to the ground. it takes work to lift it and to keep it there.
the hand strikes the target and transfers the weight to it before it gets to the front foot.

thats how you throw a right hand and generate power
if you abandon technique and max out your right hand the only way to punch harder is to come off a mound, allowing for a transferal of extra weight over extra space

tahts why a pitcher throws off a mound
he uses gravity (the will of his body to get back to the ground after he takes a forward step off of the mound) to move the ball forward, no matter if he's trying to beam somebody or throw the ball in the dirt


i'll certainly get sources to back me up if you need them. to be completely honest, it wont be hard. no text on boxing will tell you that you lose leverage punching a shorter opponent or target (unless the target is excessively low to the ground, and it's illegal to dip your head below your opponents waist anyway)

hell, if friday night fights was still on you can hear teddy atlas talk about "the leverage on the right hand from a tall guy" at least once per broadcast it seems
this is what he's talking about.

I'm with you on this. Baseball pitcher off a mound...... With a great Fast bowler in cricket. he comes running in, to gather speed to assist in adding pace to the ball..... when he approaches the crease or about to reach delivery..... the fast bowler doesn't come in as low as possible,... no, he instead leaps into the air,.... for that other great advantage over the batsman..... height, therefore bounce, steep bounce. The combination of run-up speed and height, and a whippy bowling action,... can deliver a cricket ball at up to 100 mph,... and the ball rearing up at the batsmans neck off the pitch........ and let me tell you...... hundreds of batsman have been flattened by a blow on the head............. And the same principals work with boxing. Anybody who has spent hours hitting a speed ball 6 inches above your head as you mentioned, will agree that gravity is indeed a force to be reckoned with.

[New England]

A punch is a very different thing than throwing a ball. You will hear EVERYWHERE that its better to punch from behind your shoulder and not down, and to your entire body into the punch.

Gravity is a very small thing when it comes to a punch, because you want your entire body weight in it. Havent you ever heard of 'following through' with a punch to cause more damage? That means pushing through it with your legs and back braced. And I hate to break it to you, but its literally impossible to force your quadreceps to generate power angled down, since that muscle can only extend, it has no flexion unlike the hamstrings.

look at any of the hardest straight right hand punchers.

Hearns' shoulder is below Duran's head level.

Arguello follows the punch through his shoulder level, not downward

Remember how Trinidad used to dip down to meet his opponent often, before reaching up with a left hook? Notice how the right behind follows through on his shoulder level when he throws a powerful right hand? Despite his usually height advantage, his shoulder would almost always be about the head level of his shorter opponent.

its about transferring weight. when i'm talking about getting leverage and power i'm talking about his weight, not just his hands


that's not where his power is made
it;s made from transferring his weight
not muscles in his legs specifically, or any real muscle specifically.
and certainly not the quadriceps. those are a pushing muscle (extension is the technical term i believe) they extend the leg at the knee they really aren't very involved with punching, and that's why you don't see big ones on any of your favorite boxer.
if there's a leg muscle involved with throwing a right hand more than others its your ass and your hips



the means of generating power that you're talking about is not how you're taught to punch, and not what makes sense once you know how to punch, which honestly leads me to believe that you don't have a ton of experience throwing punches, which is absolutely fine and i'm not trying to run you down for it

and for the bold part

how on earth would gravity play a small role in punching if you want to "put your weight in it?"

what does gravity want your weight doing?

punching is about weight transferral
i don't know how many times i've got to say that
anybody who boxes (especially those who are punchers or have been involved with punchers) will tell you that

it's a gravity based phenomenon, power punching
it;s not just about using big muscles and pushing and pulling (which is all muscles do on their own)
it's about coordinating a fast transferral of weight that can make a target accelerate rapidly

[New England]

I'm with you on this. Baseball pitcher off a mound...... With a great Fast bowler in cricket. he comes running in, to gather speed to assist in adding pace to the ball..... when he approaches the crease or about to reach delivery..... the fast bowler doesn't come in as low as possible,... no, he instead leaps into the air,.... for that other great advantage over the batsman..... height, therefore bounce, steep bounce. The combination of run-up speed and height, and a whippy bowling action,... can deliver a cricket ball at up to 100 mph,... and the ball rearing up at the batsmans neck off the pitch........ and let me tell you...... hundreds of batsman have been flattened by a blow on the head............. And the same principals work with boxing. Anybody who has spent hours hitting a speed ball 6 inches above your head as you mentioned, will agree that gravity is indeed a force to be reckoned with.

hit it on the head, bro ^^


just imagine your speedbag is your opponents chin

and set it up at chin height

and then six inches above your head
and another six inches above that

hit each 2000 times (shouldn't take long if you can hit a speedbag, but the tall one will be a serious workout.)

and come back to me with your honest opinion