Three times Golovkin let himself be hit in the face

[LoadedWraps]

In a video game....that's the only place you ever sparred.

Care to bet real money on that?

Come find me in the bay area, name your gym. Any gym in SF, Oakland, north or south bay and I'll show up with my own gear and leave with your respect.

I spar every week, have for many moons.

[Sparked_26]

He let Brook hit him on the chin then?

Doubtful.

That uppercut was a massive shot. Albeit thrown by an undersized opponent.

[!! Shawn]

I honestly feel embarrassed. It saddens me when the people I like chatting about boxing with turn out to be so insecure and delusional that they pretend their favorite boxer is catching clean shots on purpose. No boxer is perfect. They ALL have flaws. Stuff like this is cringe-inducing.

Whats embarrassing is that you don't understand that all boxing isn't slip and counter.

There is such thing as take one to give one. The most recent famous example of this is Nonito Donaire during his meteoric rise.

He would leave himself open for the right hand, and even let you hit him with it enough to get you confident throwing it so he could start to hook over the top of it.

Its a tactic that a lot of heavy handed fighters have to learn to use, because if a guy is getting countered every time he fires a shot, eventually he is going to stop throwing, and you are not going to have openings for your own shots.

(See Rigondeaux)

Here is an example of Donaire letting Montiel hit him with a right hand to create an opening for his left hook.



Here is an example of GGG doing it.



If you remember this knockdown, he pawed at Monroe for a while waiting to bait a 1-2 out of him. Why? When Monroe is throwing a straight left, he is turning into the left hook, and can't take any steam off of it.

GGG went in committed to taking the straight left to get in his left hook.

Now to take those two strategic examples, and apply it to why sometimes fighter will let themselves get hit with good shots.

Its mental. If you let your opponent hit you with their hardest shot, and it doesn't faze you, especially if they have other tools to fall back on, the will abandon the idea of trying to hurt you, they are going to start to meter their power, and start trying to outbox you.

This means that when you set up punches like in the examples I gave, you can create more opportunities for yourself, and commit to giving one to take one more often because now your opponent is not putting as much mustard on their punches so there is much less risk.

Its the kind of nuance of the sport, you have to learn through experience, its not something that you can really pick up just from watching.

Obviously it's not the right strategy for every fighter. But it does work, it does take skill.

There are even fighter light Marco Antonio Barrera, who do things like taking the right hand to drop a left to the body, but turning his head with the shot to take off the sting. Something that Freddy Roach teaches.

Head rolling in general is often neglected by the casual observer because it looks from the outside like you are getting hit with a big shot that spun your head around.

There are notable examples of it being seen as part of rote training.

Jorge Linares vs Antonio Demarco for example.

Even the commentators were questioning why Linares was turning his head after throwing combinations without anything coming back in return.

Its a clear example of a habit developed during training. There was something they saw in demarco and wanted to avoid, and trained to turn with the expected counter after throwing.

Its a different variation of letting a fighter hit you.

By turning your head instead of slipping or blocking you can continue trading and get the better of an exchange.

It can be seen in usage frequently by Marco Antonio Barrera and Israel Vazquez.

[Redd Foxx]

Whats embarrassing is that you don't understand that all boxing isn't slip and counter.

There is such thing as take one to give one. The most recent famous example of this is Nonito Donaire during his meteoric rise.

He would leave himself open for the right hand, and even let you hit him with it enough to get you confident throwing it so he could start to hook over the top of it.

Its a tactic that a lot of heavy handed fighters have to learn to use, because if a guy is getting countered every time he fires a shot, eventually he is going to stop throwing, and you are not going to have openings for your own shots.

(See Rigondeaux)

Here is an example of Donaire letting Montiel hit him with a right hand to create an opening for his left hook.



Here is an example of GGG doing it.



If you remember this knockdown, he pawed at Monroe for a while waiting to bait a 1-2 out of him. Why? When Monroe is throwing a straight left, he is turning into the left hook, and can't take any steam off of it.

GGG went in committed to taking the straight left to get in his left hook.

Now to take those two strategic examples, and apply it to why sometimes fighter will let themselves get hit with good shots.

Its mental. If you let your opponent hit you with their hardest shot, and it doesn't faze you, especially if they have other tools to fall back on, the will abandon the idea of trying to hurt you, they are going to start to meter their power, and start trying to outbox you.

This means that when you set up punches like in the examples I gave, you can create more opportunities for yourself, and commit to giving one to take one more often because now your opponent is not putting as much mustard on their punches so there is much less risk.

Its the kind of nuance of the sport, you have to learn through experience, its not something that you can really pick up just from watching.

Obviously it's not the right strategy for every fighter. But it does work, it does take skill.

There are even fighter light Marco Antonio Barrera, who do things like taking the right hand to drop a left to the body, but turning his head with the shot to take off the sting. Something that Freddy Roach teaches.

Head rolling in general is often neglected by the casual observer because it looks from the outside like you are getting hit with a big shot that spun your head around.

There are notable examples of it being seen as part of rote training.

Jorge Linares vs Antonio Demarco for example.

Even the commentators were questioning why Linares was turning his head after throwing combinations without anything coming back in return.

Its a clear example of a habit developed during training. There was something they saw in demarco and wanted to avoid, and trained to turn with the expected counter after throwing.

Its a different variation of letting a fighter hit you.

By turning your head instead of slipping or blocking you can continue trading and get the better of an exchange.

It can be seen in usage frequently by Marco Antonio Barrera and Israel Vazquez.

Don't have time for the novel but what we're seeing from Golovkin isn't just give and take. If you read my other posts in here you'll see I already beat you to the "take one to give a better one" subject and commented that the punches Golovkin eats are often of little consequence because he's measuring and moving himself into position to deliver better shots. None of that negates what I said.