[GIFS]Bar none best boxer in the sport(Alexander Gustafsson)

[SherdogGoat]

He does, I asked a friend of mine who trains out of wild card gym. He teaches offense only.

LOL

The first three rounds, he made it look super easy, with just a jab and a right.

LOL again.

 

[BBKAllDay]

I personally like Michael McDonald's boxing over anyone else's, but this topic is pretty damn subjective.

 

[SCIRCA]

Maybe you missed the part where I mentioned his go to move is his jab and he uses that quite effectively with his wrestling that he doesn't need to do much else. His jab is probably the best in ufc but overall I'd agree that he isn't better than Gustaffson. As for Aldo, he is definitely up there but you are a total retard if you think Aldo jabbed him to an easy win. It was a very close fight and Frankie held his own, many people thought he actually won that fight. BJ was considered a great boxer and Frankie outboxed him too. It's retarded to not consider him a great boxer. And JDS is definitely up there, though his defense needs improvement. And yeah I didn't even include Mousasi in my list who is phenomenal and better than Gus imo. You seem like a delusional Gus nuthugger.

Aldo made it look easy to me, when he started to get tired, that's when it got competitive. I think Mousasi is a great boxer, or else he wouldn't have wanted to participate in the olympics.

 

[SCIRCA]

LOL



LOL again.

Why is that funny? Wild Card Gym is like 7 minutes away from me.

 

[Burst-Shot]

Tom brady is the best tennis player in football

No, that doesn't work at all dumb ass.

If you were to have said something like: " Tom Brady is the fastest sprinter in football " it would be a proper analogy. Now he isn't a sprinter, he isn't going to be getting gold in the olympic 100 meter sprint. But being the a fast sprinter would be relevant, or an attribute to the sport he plays in.

Sort of like being the best boxer in MMA...

 

[SherdogGoat]

Aldo made it look easy to me, when he started to get tired, that's when it got competitive. I think Mousasi is a great boxer, or else he wouldn't have wanted to participate in the olympics.

I also thought Aldo won but barely and it was close enough that Edgar could have gotten the nod so it's absurd to say that Aldo won that fight easy. Btw I laughed at you for Roach's lack of defense coaching because your source is your friend lol otherwise I've read it quite a few times myself that he does lack in coaching boxing defense so I am not negating you. It's just that when you say my friend told me this so it must be true is hilarious and sounds stupid. Mousasi is definitely amazing, if he had TDD and better cardio he'd run through almost everybody.

 

[SCIRCA]

I also thought Aldo won but barely and it was close enough that Edgar could have gotten the nod so it's absurd to say that Aldo won that fight easy. Btw I laughed at you for Roach's lack of defense coaching because your source is your friend lol otherwise I've read it quite a few times myself that he does lack in coaching boxing defense so I am not negating you. Mousasi is definitely amazing, if he had TDD and better cardio he'd run through almost everybody.

Btw that's why I asked my friend that, because I read that he doesn't teach defense well and I was curious to know. And as for Mousasi,well you have to see how his knee is, he tore his acl,which can't be good.

 

[Burst-Shot]

Tom brady is the best tennis player in football

No, that doesn't work at all dumb ass.

If you were to have said something like: " Tom Brady is the fastest sprinter in football " it would be a proper analogy. Now he isn't a sprinter, he isn't going to be getting gold in the olympic 100 meter sprint. But being the fastest sprinter would be relevant to the sport he plays in.

Sort of like being the best boxer in MMA...

 

[Koimpact]

My favorite hands moment in MMA was this:

Can't believe I haven't seen that before. Aleksander Emelianenko has some nice hands.

 

[muscari]

I thought his boxing looked abysmal agaisn't Shogun.

 

[SCIRCA]

I thought his boxing looked abysmal agaisn't Shogun.

I think it was a mental thing, he idolized Shogun.

 

[aRtFuL]

slip jab,counter left hook

I don't think in terms of boxing technically, those are authentic slips.

Those a more like dodges, non-boxing technique dodges.

Regardless, he's got excellent reaction time though. Though I wouldn't say he's got best boxing in MMA since his is not pure boxing technique.

 

[SCIRCA]

I don't think in terms of boxing technically, those are authentic slips.

Those a more like dodges, non-boxing technique dodges.

Regardless, he's got excellent reaction time though. Though I wouldn't say he's got best boxing in MMA since his is not pure boxing technique.

Lol WTF? You don't know what your talking about especially when it comes to boxing.

That's a slip, and that's what he does in the gif. Sigh...

 

[JKS]

He is good....but I dont think he's the best boxer in MMA. I really like JDS in this case. A guy like Glover also has excellent boxing and hands, great combinations.

 

[Kaioken x 10]

If we're talking skills, a lot of the boxing at 135-155 is lightyears ahead of Mauler and JDS. Guys like Aldo, Cub and Pearson have seriously great pure boxing. Not saying Alex and JDS aren't good, but the best in the sport... not even close

 

[Kind Herb]

Tom brady is the best tennis player in football

That would actually be Drew Brees. He's beat Andy Roddick.

Anyways, your analogy doesn't really apply, since tennis is not a subset of football, like boxing is of MMA.

Thanks for the laugh tho.

 

[SCIRCA]

If we're talking skills, a lot of the boxing at 135-155 is lightyears ahead of Mauler and JDS. Guys like Aldo, Cub and Pearson have seriously great pure boxing. Not saying Alex and JDS aren't good, but the best in the sport... not even close

Im sorry what?!

 

[Break Brick]

Yea, I'm not a big fan of his spade tattoo with triangles as wins and loses. His other tattoos are nice though, the dog and the redskins thing lol, don't really know what its called.

I like his "shark tooth" for wins tattoo! Not a big fan of the spade though

 

[SCIRCA]

I like his "shark tooth" for wins tattoo! Not a big fan of the spade though

Did you see the three gifs? xD

 

[Ughugh]

Frankie has flaws in his boxing game, no doubt. His movement undoubtedly has purpose, though (even if at times it can be a tad excessive, though I say this as a technical critique because it causes him to occasionally square himself up and lose control of distance). Frankie not "sitting down on his punches" is something often cited on here. The fact is, if Frankie were to sit down and throw everything hard in the pocket with most fighters, he wouldn't fair too well. He's not a spectacular puncher. More often than not, he throws to land, first and foremost. When he starts to break a fighter down and as the fight wears on, he tends to sit down more on his shots (he sat down plenty against Maynard, Bendo and Oliveira after he had gotten into his rhythm). He's not a big puncher. That's just a fact. He fights according to his strengths (tremendous cardio, reasonably quick feet and sound balance and coordination). It would be foolish to question someone like Joe Calzaghe for not throwing every punch with knockout intent from round 1 onwards.

Good shout.

I think that people who underestimate Frankie's boxing over at the striking forum are generally very set in their ideas and tend to favor american style boxing with certain dogmas like "feet planted", "low and compact", "move to counter" etc. Those same people will find faults in Gustafsson's movement because it doesn't follow their set dogmas which more often than not is an extension of the classic american vs euro debate. Classic example is this tidbit of american boxing wisdom shared by a prominent gent in the striking forum a few days ago in retort to a 50/50 serious/troll -rant of mine:

Spoiler

You may have evaded some attacks by straightening out your body and pulling your head way back, but so what? You evaded the attack, congratulations, did it really get you anywhere...and by that I mean did it give you the means to immediately hurt your opponent, or just bide you time? As a trainer I don't really care if someone can evade punches if the evasion doesn't garner either control, or a counter punch that hurts the other guy. But that's just me. That's what it's all about, making use of the initiative granted by the execution of a technique.

With being upright, you're subject to what I call the 'cannon firing at the castle tower' problem. What can anyone in a castle tower do if there are cannon balls being fired at them? If your answer is get lower, that would be correct. Otherwise it's only a matter of time before the tower is destroyed. And of course we're talking about against opponents who can exploit this. So there's really no sense showing examples of someone getting away with this against an inept opponent. Optimal circumstances are rare, but that they occur rarely and are uncommon doesn't mean they are not optimal. Something can occur commonly, and still be incorrect...

The context though is it's really not a american vs euro debate. Most swedes with any type of olympic boxing aspirations, grew up worshipping HWs (and Gustafsson is a natural HW, which imo is something that's often overlooked when reviewing his boxing) like Felix Savon just as much if not more than your Mike Tysons because pro boxing was banned. I'm guessing Gustafsson's from-scratch boxing coach did too because he wrote a paper on cuban boxing in his coach's licensing many moons ago and I believe he also worked for a period with the cuban nationals.

Now what the cubans do great is that they don't build you the proverbial castle towering against hundreds of cannons outlined in the example above, instead they build you a cannon you can aim at the castle. Quick feet, movement and control over the entry point is everything so a more upright position is favored for mobility. This is done under the notion that you should train every fighter to become a great champ, and a great champ can't afford to be a castle because a cannon will come along and blow that fucker to pieces no matter what it's structure look like. This is the context of Gustafsson's mma adopted boxing and the ideology behind it is very different from other schools of boxing where form rather than versatility rules supreme. This is why some guys will hate on fighters like the Mark Henry (who's brilliant imho) built Frankie Edgar and the Andreas Michael built Gustafsson, because their modality of perception is in the typical american "defend the castle" mode instead of "reset and fire the cannon" mode of cuban. BJ may have had the best castle in LW, and according to Freddie Roach the best in all of mma, but Frankie never stormed his gates so it didn't matter much. Instead he took aim with his cannon and chipped away until the structure crumbled. BJ sent his tanks, but Frankie had set up camp in the forrest looking to do guerrilla warfare.

Jon is similarly a castle, maybe the grandest one in mma with an army of long range archers and dudes with axes protecting the wall, but he took on a cannon. Whenever he'd rebuilt a wall and readied his archers, Gustafsson set a different aim from His desired entry point and ultimately enticed him to lower the gates and send out his troops. Short of a 40 second spurt at the end of the 4:th the initiative was always his. He moved his cannon and Jon responded by moving his troops around the wall. The only thing Jon could do was to apply forward pressure to force him to reset more often, give him cannonfodder so to speak to lower his striking pace. That's all there is to it. This cannon vs castle flow rather than a technical detail here and there is what gives Gustafsson command and I didn't see one of the self-proclaimed experts touch on it prior to the fight. It's like being handed the keys to a sportscar and reviewing the cup holders so yeah... a ton of ignorace.

I'd love to see some of the critics touch on how Savon's and Stevenson's boxing in terms of levels, movement, set-ups, defense, etc compares to Gustafsson's thus. And I'd also love to see them critique some of Savon's and Stevenson's stuff with their typical rigid american boxing ideology. There's a topic worthwhile imho. And I think hilarity would ensue.




Picturing it now.

Sherdog: "You may have evaded some attacks by straightening out your body and pulling your head way back, but so what? You evaded the attack, congratulations, did it really get you anywhere...and by that I mean did it give you the means to immediately hurt your opponent, or just bide you time? As a trainer I don't really care if someone can evade punches if the evasion doesn't garner either control, or a counter punch that hurts the other guy. But that's just me. That's what it's all about, making use of the initiative granted by the execution of a technique."

Savon: "Que?????"

Anderson: "Don't mind he, Felix. Is normal. He good. Hespected."

Savon: "We no box???"

Anderson: "We box americano. Is normal. Is america. Sensei Seagal. Ninja. Is normal."

Stevenson: "Baboso..."

Sherdog: "... with being upright, you're subject to what I call the 'cannon firing at the castle tower' problem. What can anyone in a castle tower do if there are cannon balls being fired at them? If your answer is get lower, that would be correct. Otherwise it's only a matter of time before the tower is destroyed. And of course we're talking about against opponents who can exploit this. So there's really no sense showing examples of someone getting away with this against an inept opponent. Optimal circumstances are rare, but that they occur rarely and are uncommon doesn't mean they are not optimal. Something can occur commonly, and still be incorrect...

Any questions???!!! Ok! We've got a lot of work to do ladies!!!!!!!!!! Bend the knees and no fancy shit!!!"


A very respected gent gave me the best advice I've ever received during a study trip down south. I've forgotten the spanish version but it translates from swedish into "never use limitations as a measure of greatness". I feel like some gents in boxing could whirl that idea around and have a fresh look at things. Not just in terms of Gustafsson/europeans vs americans but fighting in general. Like the sport of MMA so vehemently have shown there are so many different styles and ideas to pick and chose from so why limit yourself with one? If it has a W attached to it then it's worth having a look at.