Should boxing institute a rule against ‘running’ in the ring?
As any boxing enthusiast will tell you, boxers generally fall into one of two categories: boxers or brawlers. The former are at their best when they can technically outpoint their opponent and control the pace of a bout with sticking jabs, dazzling footwork,
and calculated combinations. The latter don't care about technically outpointing opponents and instead simply take the fight to them, rushing with heavy, lethal blows. The archetypal fighter of this type is Mike Tyson in his younger days.
The fight last month between Chad Dawson and Jean Pascal demonstrates this distinction in action. Dawson was widely considered one of the top fighters in the world going in; he’d spit out everyone that had been thrown at him by using his excellent right-hand
jab (he’s a southpaw fighter) and outpointed his opponents. Dawson is the perfect example of a technical boxer, and he has all the athletic qualities to prove it; he’s tall and quick, and has a long reach advantage.
Pascal, on the other hand, doesn’t have the height or reach of Dawson. He does have explosive power and a solid work ethic, so that’s what he uses. He’s a good example of a slugger type. This type of fighter likes to control on the inside, and can succeed
when the pressure they put on their boxer-counterpart is greater than the capacity with which the boxer himself can manage.
Fights almost always come down to styles, and being able to execute a style effectively. The fighter who is forced out of his style will rarely ever win a fight, but the guy who can make his opponent fight his fight will usually win his.
In recent years there’s been a couple of interesting phenomena in the boxing world. For one, many of the world’s top fighters increasingly fall into the ‘boxer’ camp. Chad Dawson is one example. Floyd Mayweather Jr., Andre Dirrell, Ivan Calderon, Cory
Spinks...all of these guys are noted for their impeccable craftsmanship. The main trouble is, often, with today’s best boxers of this camp, they tend to be a total yawn to watch. This is because they rarely to ever take the kinds of chances that would make
for entertaining fights. Instead, guys, like Dawson or Dirrell can win on points just by circling the ring for 12 rounds and landing the cleaner shots now and again. Fans, of course, never like this kind of thing.
Hence the relevance of Jean Pascal’s recent comments about Dawson: “if he thinks he is going to run like a chicken and leave with my title, he is making a big mistake.”
Pascal gets at the crux of the matter, and something probably every self-respecting boxing fan can attest to when watching a fighter prance around the ring without doing anything much. Sure, you can outpoint a guy and win a fight; but if you’re not really
fighting him, are you a better fighter?
One of the paradoxes at the heart of the sport of boxing is that it’s all about fighting, but nobody knows how to define 'fighting'. Attempts at clarification with guidelines and rules have proven insufficient from a symbolic standpoint. Is fighting about
‘going punch for punch’ with a guy and standing ‘toe to toe’ with him (whatever that means), or about safely being able to outpoint a guy and then escape his attack?
Fans define fighting by entertainment value. By that same measure, when boxers fail to satisfy that, as they often do when successfully evading opponents for 12 rounds, should they be penalized? Should there be a rule against running the ring, something
like the penalization given for travelling in basketball? It seems far-fetched, but all sporting rules do before their institution.
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