"Mexican Style" Used By Golovkin Is One Hundred Years Old
Mexican style is the new buzz word in boxing today.
So where did it originate?
Many point toward Mexico’s Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. as the main influence of the fighting style that combines aggressiveness and pressure fighting with an emphasis on the left hook. The prizefighter from Culiacan mauled down more than 100 opponents during his reign of terror for two decades.
However, Chavez was not the inventor of that style; there were other Mexicans who manifested the pressure style that has become so popular not only in Mexico, but throughout the entire Southwest. Some today even call it the “West Coast style.”
For more than 100 years Mexican or Mexican-American boxers have refrained from the “hit and not get hit” philosophy and preferred the more popular “seek and destroy” motto that has its benefits and pratfalls. In the 1890s, Solly Garcia Smith claimed the featherweight title in the beginning when prizefighting first required boxing gloves. The Los Angeles prizefighter wasn’t the only pressure style fighter in those early days. John L. Sullivan brought that in as a heavyweight.
Others followed in the early days, with prizefighters like Harry Greb, Battling Ortega, Mickey Walker, Henry Armstrong, Baby Arizmendi, Jake LaMotta and the mighty Kid Azteca of Mexico City, who fought 252 pro bouts spanning 1929 to 1961. Of his 192 wins, 114 came by knockout. He most definitely influenced a whole lot of Mexican fighters that followed, such as Vicente Saldivar, Ruben Olivares and many others.
So when JCC came along there was already a style that Mexican fans preferred and fighters adhered to. Chavez was perhaps the best of the Mexican assassins, guys whose sole intent was to render his opponent unconscious or incapacitated.
“Chavez was a deadly fighter in his day,” said the late Johnny Ortiz in an interview in 2004. “His body punches were devastating.”
Body blows are the staple of Mexican fighters, who need to open up their opponent’s defense with some crunching hooks to the liver or stomach. It’s a necessity when fighting runners or safety first boxers. Since Chavez, there have been Mexican fighters streaming out of Mexico with that style, like a long conveyor belt. The style has permeated the entire Southwest region of the U.S. and has given us fighters like Diego Corrales, Fernando Vargas, Israel Vazquez and newcomers like Mikey Garcia.
This is a thread to discuss the Mexican style of boxing more so how to do it and what the athletes that use it do and what particular athletes use it, and also other Mexican style of boxing talks no hate posts just discussion.
