CHARLEY BURLEY: Analyzing a Genius

[Nagel]

I thought so too. Using fights as reference material isn't a bad idea, but I think that it's given that you need a good coach to give you feedback.

 

[yodsaenkla**]

I thought Cus d'amato was an advocate of not just studying fights of your upcoming opponent but studying fighters in general. I seem to remember him talking with tyson about fighters from the past and Tyson saying he liked watching Liston and Dempsey especially.

 

[devante]

I thought Cus d'amato was an advocate of not just studying fights of your upcoming opponent but studying fighters in general. I seem to remember him talking with tyson about fighters from the past and Tyson saying he liked watching Liston and Dempsey especially.

im an advocate of this as well, wether your a fighter or you just train; i think the best thing is to do is to watch all sorts of fighters, you can pick up all sorts of things from watching people of all levels and of all physical abilities.

i personally am a fioht fan, an i watch all types of fighting and all types of fighters very carefully; probably much more closely than the average fan.

 

[TheArtist]

Sinister,

As a comparitive boxing layman, the "classic" stance and the stance that accompanies the "philly shell" guard look incredibly similar to me. Minus the reliance on the shoulder roll from the "philly shell", can you point out the major differences between that style of stance and the "classic" stance, because from what i can see, Toney, Mayweather et al. have their heads offline and weighted over their back foot. Am i missing something or are they basically the same stance but with a different guard style?

Also, i wanted to ask you a while back in another thread and never got around to it, does using the philly shell guard limit your jabbing ability? Going back to Mayweather, most fights he doesn't work the jab as much as rely on left hook and right cross counter punching to stop opponents getting in on him. Is this Mayweather's choice or is it a downside of the guard style? Is it possible to work in a style where you have the defensive properties of that guard but also have the ability to work your jab alot?

Thanks

 

[Nagel]

...can you point out the major differences between that style of stance and the "classic" stance, because from what i can see, Toney, Mayweather et al. have their heads offline and weighted over their back foot. Am i missing something or are they basically the same stance but with a different guard style?

One of things with the old-timers such as Benny Leonard, is that they'd place their right hand near/on their solar-plexus. It was commonly referred to as the "mark", and much emphasis was placed on attacking and defending it. The right hand held lower also served to draw jabs. On the other hand, with the "philly shell", the right hand is held by the cheek to parry/catch jabs, and to block left-hooks.

The low left lead, is common in both stances, although in the "philly shell" the lead forearm may be brought closer to the body. I don't think that it impeded the older fighters, since many were prolific jabbers.

 

[Sinister]

Nagel - Ottey's e-mail address would be fantastic.

Sinister,

As a comparitive boxing layman, the "classic" stance and the stance that accompanies the "philly shell" guard look incredibly similar to me. Minus the reliance on the shoulder roll from the "philly shell", can you point out the major differences between that style of stance and the "classic" stance, because from what i can see, Toney, Mayweather et al. have their heads offline and weighted over their back foot. Am i missing something or are they basically the same stance but with a different guard style?

Also, i wanted to ask you a while back in another thread and never got around to it, does using the philly shell guard limit your jabbing ability? Going back to Mayweather, most fights he doesn't work the jab as much as rely on left hook and right cross counter punching to stop opponents getting in on him. Is this Mayweather's choice or is it a downside of the guard style? Is it possible to work in a style where you have the defensive properties of that guard but also have the ability to work your jab alot?

Thanks

There's definitely a lot of similarities. People have often asked me why Bernard Hopkins doesn't use the shell, he does, just differently and in spots, he likes to keep his left hand mobile to draw jabs, but if you attack him he drops that lead shoulder close to his chin, rolls, and uses either a counter-right or a left hook. Watch him enough, and you'll see he's closer to Toney/Mayweather than people think.

Nagel hit on the hand-position nuances, but also mentioned earlier that Floyd Jr. possibly could have been even better than he is had he fought in a different era. I agree with this. The reason being is Floyd Jr. actually resembles Ali, in that he learned the very basics of the Sport, jab, hook, uppercut, cross, block, duck, roll, etc. Then let his brain take over and because he's a thinking Fighter, became brilliant. But Roger Mayweather, while no dummy, isn't on-par with the true craftsmen of the Sport. Floyd Sr. has the know-how, but became alienated to Floyd Jr. So while I think Floyd is one of the most technically brilliant boxers on the planet, as Ali was in his day, had he a trainer the likes of Futch or Bouie Fisher, he'd have been that much moreso, almost completely untouchable as Burley was in his day.

Why? Floyd has a couple problems, they're just EXTREMELY difficult to exploit. Pot-shotting isn't the least of them, because he's so fast he can hit you from anywhere, but he doesn't like to be crowded and forced to throw more than 3 at a time. Castillo exploited this by using head-movement, and baiting Floyd into range-finding with his punches, then countering that. He also stands almost completely sideways a lot, so when Castillo rolled and threw body punches, there was nowhere for Floyd to go, he was forced to just absorb the punches.

He's also vulnerable to chest/shoulder jabs, as Judah and DLH both did. I also mention Dee, my favorite sparring partner, earlier in this thread. He does A LOT of tucking and rolling...and by a lot I mean he does that for whole rounds, the whole time you spar him. But he does it intelligently. The ONLY way to neutralize that is to jab his body or shoulder first, then his head, or head then body to stop his counter. Same with Floyd. That's also how you check the jab from guys who keep their lead-hand low, they can't jab if your hand is over theirs. So Floyd doesn't bother unless he's way on the outside, but his jab from the outside is so fast, even a brilliant counter-puncher like Marquez couldn't time it.

When you watch Floyd, and James Toney, you may notice their heads aren't that much off-center, which is why James had such a hard time with Mike and why Floyd had such a hard time with Castillo's upper-body movement. Because James learned from tapes, and Floyd flourished also in his own mind, there's some refinement missing, and they're both a little straight-backed at times (Floyd even puts his chin up when exchanging), and rely too much on turning side to side, where guys like Burly and Mike would be completely out of the way. I'm in the process right this second of erasing the same problem about myself. Finding the angles where I can hit you, and you can't hit me. Couple black eyes and lectures from Mike later and I'm getting better at it.

 

[Sinister]

BTW - Just in case anyone suspected, the modern-day Burley (only WITH the Title Shot Burley never got) in MMA is BJ Penn. Sitting here watching the re-play of the Fight with Sanchez, the reason BJ kept absolutely tooling Diego on their feet is because of the nuances in this video. BJ boxes like a classical Boxer, moves his head the same ways, saw everything Diego threw coming. Diego was straight-backed, no angles, no real defense to speak of, head always right in the middle.

 

[PankyHank]

wow well done on the video, learned quite abit in boxing history.

 

[chino0503]

i never liked the conventional way of boxing..... watching old school fights makes me appreciate the slick style boxer more.

 

[proudamericanda]

question-

how much is it there not being enough trainers who know what to teach and how to teach it; an how much of it is the fault of the promoters, who want to get a kid out there and maximize their earnings. Or the fault of a fighter who either a)is so limited he can't develop the skills fast enough to be competitve OR worse yet said boxer has already reached a certain level of success and isn't willing to take direction, instead seeking to get rid of said trainer.

part of doing something is having faith in it and in alot of cases if a boxer isn't buying what your selling, that boxer won't execute as well, cus he has no faith and no will to do so. Its the same w/a system in football or baseball or basketball etc; people will stick w/what they feel comfortable w/moreso than what is new or unfamiliart, i always thought part of the reason hopkins developed like he did is due to his limited b/g and the fact he lost his first fight and because he never had great phys ability, he had no choice but to get better an learn every trick. He wasn't good enough to fight any other way, unlike a de la hoya or roy jones jr or vic darchivyan or malignaggi and so on..etc All of whom had alot of success and had exceptional ability.

I think the main reason that this system is kind of lost (and I may be totally wrong) is that most top boxing prospects come out of the top amateur ranks in this country. The amateur point system is more rewarding towards volume punchers. While the "classical" stance that Burley uses works great as a professional I don't think it allows a fighter to showcase their skills in 3 2-minute rounds.

 

[Sinister]

It did back when judges knew how to score Fights.

But the system was also lost when a lot of the old trainers passed on, and never had apprentices. You can see whose apprentices passed the test of time now. Nazim Richardson was Bouie's apprentice. Futch had both Roach and McCallum, Roach with more notoriety of course. Nobody really followed in the footsteps of Georgie Benton that I know of, but Steward has Joey Gamache right now. D'Amato had Rooney until he got into poor health, but more importantly he had Atlas, who still trains guys. Atlas has Michael Moorer, who despite his personality problems, is actually a pretty damn good trainer. And even Floyd Jr. has trained some younger guys and is pretty good at it.

It's all about the know-how of coaching being passed on. But the Sport is FLOODED with watered-down versions of guys who only know how to teach you how to punch. Not how to box. MMA is even worse-off because it's also filled with the guys who couldn't coach Boxing, who don't even teach how to punch right. Guys like Howard Davis and Skipper Kelp (and Robert Garcia) being exceptions.

 

[Morozevich]

That is the best boxing video I've ever seen.

 

[Handsy]

Bumping this out of sheer awesomeness.

Changed the way I look at the game, made me grateful for my lack of flash and "pop".

 

[Jim Reaper]

Excellent vid. I came across these on my own a week ago. I was gonna post it, but clearly I don't need to.

Here is a free ebook of "The Complete Boxer" by JG Bohum Lynch:

Read the ebook The complete boxer by Bohun Lynch

 

[Handsy]

Sweet! Thanks man!

 

[aries]

Woah! That's some game changing stuff right there! Have to admit I'd never heard of Charley Burley before this but just the analysis itself is excellent. It's nice to see some of the classic styles broken down so clearly and concisely.

 

[Higus]

I want to check this out later

 

[Jim Reaper]

Does anyone know of any other instructionals that use the analysis of actual boxing footage rather than just a coach in a gym providing pointers? It seems like a much better way to learn being that it shows the techniques being used in a practical situation.

 

[KyleInAction]

Does anyone know of any other instructionals that use the analysis of actual boxing footage rather than just a coach in a gym providing pointers? It seems like a much better way to learn being that it shows the techniques being used in a practical situation.

There's one on Ezzard Charles around post 20 or so.

 

[fightingrabbit]

Nobody really followed in the footsteps of Georgie Benton that I know of,

Pernell?