Official Ask Tim Witherspoon Anything Thread

Would you box Vitor Belfort in Triller called?

 

Excellent Tim, i think you would have had a cracking shot at Tyson if you showed up focused, just wanted to hear it from you

 

Any Tech Gurus out there? Having some problems uploading my video I just made answering Sherdog questions. I am pretty good with doing this but I am running into some problems.

 

Here is another Q&A and more will be coming. Thank you for the questions everyone!!

 

What do you remember most about your pro debut?

 

How hard did Jimmy Thunder hit? Where does his power rank among the people you've fought?

 

Question for Tim if he does another Q and A;

“At the time you fought Larry Holmes, from what I heard you had 7 amateur fights and 15 pro fights.

Yet your fight with Holmes was one of the highest skilled heavyweight title fights ever.

What do you think was the secret to you progressing your skills so fast?

Also what would you say to someone who says you need 100 amateur fights and 25 pro fights to be ready to fight for a title?”

 

While I'm not @Tim Witherspoon I think your last question can be answered with one name. Gabe Rosado. He had 11 amateur bouts (8-3) before he went pro. The main thing to be ready for a title fight is the ability to handle the pressure of knowing thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of people could be watching you. All the skills in the world won't save you if you can't handle the pressure of the moment. This is why they often talk about fighters "not being ready" you have to remember the majority of fighters whose name you know are elite level guys, but not everyone is ready for the big stage and nothing shows that more than not being able to showcase the level of ability you are truly capable of.

Of course Tim might torpedo this answer but that's my thoughts on it.

 

Wow, how cool is this.

Welcome to the site champ!

 

Tim,

I know you had no interest in kick boxing, but were you ever approached by any Japanese promoters to do pro wrestling or mixed fights like Trevor Berbick did in UWFI against Nobu Takada? I'm not sure if work or shoot, but Berbick looked like there was a bait and switch in his match with Takada where he was unaware that Takada was allowed to kick below the belt. Berbick had a freak out and eventually left the ring. What would you have done in a similar situation?

Thanks

 

What an opportunity to learn from a boxing legend!

Here's my question - if you had fought the young Mike Tyson during his peak, how would you have approached fighting him in order to nullify his strengths and maximise your chances of beating him?

Thanks

 

What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

 

Question for Tim,

What do you think of some of the very old school boxers like Jack Dempsey and some of their methods as explained in his book 'Championship Fighting'?


https://www.e-reading.life/bookreader.php/107333/Vzryvnoii_udar_i_aktivnaya_oborona.pdf

Specifically can you explain your understanding of the 'falling step' or 'trigger step' since no one seems to know how to do it nowadays and do you rate the technique?



Also do you believe in his advocating of the power line and the lower three knuckle landing and do you think it makes a difference?

Lastly, have you considered writing a book like Dempsey did to preserve some of the knowledge you have alongside the videos you do?

Thanks

 

Before Tim Witherspoon rresponds, just wanted to remind you that others on this forum have already previously told you that many of your assumptions about boxing and attempts to apply boxing to wing chun are not correct due to the fact that you have never been trained in boxing and are only training with a version of wing chun kung fu as your striking art.

The drop step or sinking into the punch is basic to boxing and is taught as a fundamental part of boxing. Along with stepping into the jab, it is also one of the main engines of the jab as well as of the cross.

So it's absolutely untrue that nobody in boxing knows how to do it nowadays as you assume. What is generally applicable in dempsey's methods and the methods of other great boxers of old have already been incorporated into modern boxing and those which are not so generally applicable and more specific to the unique attributes of that historical boxer are re adapted by boxers from time to time.

As for hitting with the lower three knuckles , that
is not advisable for boxers to do so as the boxers fracture is most commonly the fifth metatarsal... Furthermore the forearm bone that is connected to the lower knuckles is weaker than the forearm bone connected to the upper and larger knuckles. When the jab and cross are thrown with the correct Cork screwing motion for a full powered punch, the elbow is pointing vertical upwards and the fist is almost vertical - but downwards and with a slight wrist incline to impact with the front two knuckles but in line with the forearm. Hence there is partial application of dempsey's power line idea in modern boxing.

 

I might be biased, as Tim is one of my favs, but I think his brand of 'the sweet' science, size, athleticism, technical mastery and power would have been a real problem for Mike. Tim was like a better version of Buster Douglas, and we all know how that went. It is really too bad he had to deal with Don King and all the other shenanigans of his era, but a testament to his character that he was one of the first to stand up to this corruption at risk of his life and livelihood. If his prime was in this era, he could get his fair share and put on these fights free of corrupt individuals robbing him, and I really think he would be an undisputed heavyweight champ and too much for these modern guys.

People forget a motivated Tim put it on the undefeated Larry Holmes (robbed imo), out boxed him even, in just his 16th fight after picking up boxing late in life. That is freak level stuff, unheard of really for fighters today to reach such an elite level in such a short time.

 

No one mentioned WC so no need to divert the conversation there.
The integration with other arts can be done by people who have studied other arts, WC or otherwise.
This is however an MMA forum and most every fighter is doing some form of integration when applying boxing in MMA.
Many here are interested in this, not necessarily for just straight boxing.

I have learned a bit training with people with a boxing background, but primarily incorporated some of Dempsey's methods from his book which is why he wrote it. He is a good teacher.

Simply 'sinking into the punch' is not the falling step so you are wrong there although that's a common misconception. Yes that's a basic technique.
However we will see what Tim has to say about the trigger/falling step as explained by Dempsey, not just the method but if it is practical.

Dempsey's experience taught him to advocate the lower 3 knuckle landing and that this was the only way to fully be in sync with the powerline. He did not speak of increased fracture risk. Its a method shared with WC yes.

 

I only brought up your background to point out rhat you are hampered by having an outsiders' view of boxing. As I have pointed to you before boxing is something you have to be trained in it as a discipline from the inside to truly understand it to any real extent. Even sparring with someone claiming to know boxing or reading a book or watching videos wil not really impart that knowledge. You have to do to know. And that is likely why you have the misconceptions you appear to have.

Give the boxing industry a little credit - a prize fighting industry that employs thousands of pro boxers and many more amateur boxers trying to get into the pro system, hundreds of boxing gyms, thousands of coaches with a history and tradition dating back a couple of hundred years. Billions of dollars at stake to produce the most effective boxers capable of winning prizes that at their height gives the most successful the chance to earn hundreds of millions of dollars.

Every single technique taught to boxers today are descended from q long process of refinement of techniques introduced by boxers of earlier times. For example the corkscrew was introduced by kid mccoy well more than a hundred years ago. Those techniques that were through trial and error found to be generally effective for the ring were adopted, those which were found to be not generally effective for that purpose were discarded. Yet even those techniques were not forgotten because they became part of the lore of boxing to be adopted by a future boxer who shares the particular physical attributes that made that technique effective for the original progenitor. For example the gazelle punch of henry Armstrong and even dempsey himself would be seen in the leaping hooks of Mike Tyson a long time later.

The same has happened to dempsey's techniques - the principle behind his falling step technique became part of the repository of boxing knowledge and was added as a refinement to increase power for all punches. Where dempsey committed his whole self to the falling step in a fully committed punch, the stepping jab for example adopted the same principle in falling into the jab except to a lesser extent. So there is really no difference in nature - only in degree.

Likewise in the idea of the power line. For dempsey, perhaps he was blessed with particularly strong bones and heavy bone structure in his hands and for him, he can get away with impacting with the last two or three knuckles. But for most other boxers, they refined the concept to direct the force through the radius instead of the ulna where the radius is the heavier bone and is directed towards the first two knuckles which are much bigger in structure than the last three knuckles.

 

What is your opinion on the multiple titles not just in each weight classes, but from each sanctioning body - the WBA and WBC in particular -?

I’m personally not terribly offended by having a few major sanctioning bodies, assuming that they are willing to work with one another to let unification matches happen. But all the “regular”, “Super”, “franchise” titles are ridiculous in my opinion.

 

Do you think that waking up and running is out of date as a conditioning exercise? Maybe circuit training for footwork with a lot of plyo's and boxjumps would be more optimal for conditioning for a 6 to 12 round fight?

 

wow, wish i woulda known you were posting here sir, i would have made my boxing forum return for sure

anyway WOW, ask you anything??? REALLY???



i have SO many questions… before i can even BEGIN to narrow that ‘santa’s wish list’ of questions let me please get one thing out of the way by making a statement of my humble opinion:


Tim Witherspoon, you are one of my favorite pro fighters of all time and THE SINGLE MOST UNDERRATED PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE EVER that i can think of… how did this happen?

in my opinion the main thing was when YOU WERE ROBBED (as others were) of your victory over Larry Homes… YOU WON THAT FIGHT, anyone who says otherwise i dont even have the time or energy to argue with you, i mean COME ON…

even tho you lost the fight you went on to beat many top names of the time, some of which were great and iconic fighters of the time like Bonecrusher Smith, Frank Bruno, Tony Tubbs…

all of whom are undeservedly mentioned in the same breath as you are…


people who dont know, Tim Witherspoon was only the 3rd person to regain a world heavyweight championship in HISTORY, only after Floyd “the original ‘gumby’ hair-do” Patterson and Muhammad “The Greatest of all Times” Ali…







I mean, COME ON…



i love you mang… definitely in my top 5 all time all weights all fighting styles, not just boxing