If you?ve found yourself screaming in frustration as Floyd Mayweather dances away from danger or dozing off in fitful slumber as Wladimir Klitschko clinches his way to dominance, you are not alone.
Historians may regard this current period of boxing as the era of negative fighting?and, consequently, the era where boxing has lost the support of the much-needed casual fan.
In a nutshell, negative fighting is being able to nullify your opponent?s offense while doing just enough to take a victory. For a fighter like Mayweather or Guillermo Rigondeaux, this means movement, angles, and tactical counter-punching. These fighters keep their opponent?s off-balance with a number of tricks and ring illusions, but ultimately depend on speed and reflexes to execute their strategy at the highest levels. For a fighter like Klitschko, negative fighting takes the form of a jab and grab style where an opponent?s offense is smothered by a mauling, clinch-heavy strategy. The former heavyweight champ would be dominant in a lackluster heavyweight division for over a decade by utilizing his reach and immense physical strength to pick away at challengers from the outside and then smother them with his massive frame on the inside until they were worn down.
Any way you slice it, though, there?s not much actual fighting to be had when a fighter focuses on being negative.
Meanwhile, fans?unless they are connoisseurs of this style or ultra-loyal supporters of the fighters?get turned off. Fight fans want fights and will walk away if all they get at the highest levels is a series of non-fights.
Don?t be deceived by the financial success of Mayweather or the packed stadium hero-worship in Eastern Europe for Klitschko. The cult of personality around Mayweather is a once-in-a-lifetime deal and Klitschko?s fandom can be chalked up to an Eastern Bloc fan base that is, really, not that sophisticated yet in the boxing game. Pull either fighter from his comfy home base, and you?ll find utter ambivalence. Mayweather is as poor a draw in the Ukraine as Klitschko is in much of the U.S. Most of the time, however, fighters who utilize a high IQ negative style are disparaged, avoided, and conveniently forgotten. Cuban defensive wizard Ringondeaux, for example, will always have trouble finding consistent TV dates and won?t likely get another meaningful high end bout unless he?s willing to move up well beyond his 122 lb. division or until he shows significant signs of diminished ability. Other fighters, such as Erislandy Lara, Austin Trout, Miguel Vazquez, and, to some degree, Andre Ward suffer similarly.
So, why, then do fighters employ these negative fight techniques? Well, to put it simply?because they work.
If you can shut down your opponent?s best assets and exploit their inability to adapt, then the road to victory is easy. And in this day and age, where most fighter simply don?t have anything resembling a complete set of professional boxing skills, something as fundamental as basic footwork or well-timed clinching can turn an offensive powerhouse into a frustrated, confused, ball of nothingness.
Tyson Fury recently dethroned heavyweight kingpin Klitschko with his own take on the negative style, basically jabbing and moving his way to a dreary, but unanimous decision win in a go-nowhere negative vs. negative pairing. WBC heavyweight titlist, Deontay Wilder, employed a similar poke and move style, abandoning his usual rock-throwing slugging style, to beat Bermane Stiverne for the belt. Bernard Hopkins had been employing, to great success, nothing but the art of negative fighting in most of his post-40 run. Rigondeaux easily schooled pound-for-pound big shot, Nonito Donaire when the two met in 2013?perhaps sealing his fate as the most avoided man in boxing with the dominant performance. And then, of course, there?s Mayweather, who has made some of the sport?s very best look like 3-fight novices with his own high IQ brand of negative fighting.
And because the top negative fighters generally don?t meet opposition smart or skilled enough to counter what they are undoing, they tend to have long careers, completely dominant until age gets to them or until they meet up with someone more negative than they are.
The instinct among fans may be to point fingers in disgust and denigrate the skills of these fighters, but the reality is that they are executing their own styles to the best of their ability. It?s the opponent, unskilled and underprepared, who should be the object of scorn. There are ways to make a negative fighter stand and fight, strategies that can be employed to force a defensive fighter out of his shell, but, for a number of reasons, old school boxing technique is fading away.
And with the disappearing art of combat, comes the loss of fan base as one-time supporters walk away from boxing to search out fights elsewhere.
Where is all this headed?
Maybe there will be a resurgence of old school dedication to skill and these negative fighters will have no choice but to step up and adapt a more combat-friendly style. Maybe fighters seen as negative will simply be pushed from the sport. With Mayweather supposedly retired and Klitschko just about retired, it should be easy to give guys like Rigondeaux the cold shoulder and eventually force them from the scene.
Most likely, the sport and its athletes will go the easiest route and do the latter, lowering the bar, overall, for the sport and choosing to promote more mainstream-palatable fan-favorite talents. Actually, there?s a case to be made that this is already happening, and it?s a shame.
Nobody is arguing that the dominance of negative fighting is beneficial to boxing. However, actively courting a dumbing-down of the sport for the sake of those who want to make a living as a fighter, but can?t bother themselves to fully learn their profession, seems lazy and short-sighted. Imagine Major League Baseball banning the slider because too many batters are not prepared to hit trick pitches or the the NBA lowering the baskets because the smaller players can?t effectively dunk. This is boxing, though, and the sport seems to specialize in short-sighted decisions to the detriment of all.
