Is this true what he is saying at 1:37 about what boxing coaches teaches or is he full of shit as usual?
let me listen. ok, well, he's speaking on several different things;
1. chest muscle telegraphing a punch. Different fighters look for different things, many have said that you can see the chest muscle flex before a punch, others will look for something as insignificant as the eyes widening (Holmes said that he could tell when in sparring, Ali was ready to throw by this) others will look for a drawing back of the hand. In ANY case, those same things can be used as part of a feint, you'll see a ton of boxers who fight with their hands in constant motion just so the opponent doesn't have a clue whats a feint and whats not and as far as the eyes, the eyes can lie too, you can look at a mans stomach and make him think you're punching there and go to his head.
2. Michael is speaking of pad work and what he's saying about that has it's point, a lot of padwork can be said or seen to be useless because no one fights like that, some say it's just for show. However, the people who really believe in it will tell you that it's not meant for power or any of that but just as a drill. Either way, like everything else, there are different ways of doing it. What people often criticize is how choreographed it is and say no one fights that way (true) but getting someone who throws something back even if it's a drill can't really hurt for when you have to do the real thing (my opinion).
3. As far as the lead jab, he's theorizing again but he is correct, the hand is supposed to move before anything else with the jab, it's a lead punch thus you do not want to give away anything with it and by moving the feet or body first, you're losing the ability to hide it. However, what I did not see in his boxing footage was him being able to coordinate the rest of his body into the jab. A good stiff jab has to have the whole body behind it, you have to put the shoulders hips and step into it, the idea is to push the opponent back. I saw none of that with his padwork. The only thing I saw that he had right was that the fist was the first thing to move. Anyways, as I said, even with that, the textbook way, there are a zillion variations and just about all fighters will have some method of moving their hands or their elbows before they jab. Look at tommy hearns throw his jab and he'll lift the elbow up before he throws it out, but he also feints with the tell (watch the duran fight) then you do have the pure textbook fighters like don Curry who'll do it to a t every time like i described, hands high, using his jab in textbook fashion.
