Photo by Ken Levine /Allsport

The difference between a decent boxer and a great boxer is often having the knowledge to attack an opponent's legs.

Wait, attacking the legs? In boxing, Jack? Yes, but I don't mean the spasmodic low kick which a frustrated Chuck Wepner threw into Muhammad Ali's thigh. I'm talking about a more sinister, indirect attack. Exhaustion of the legs is the great fight killer, it changes mobile outfighters into punching bags along the ropes. Without control over one's own legs the ability to advance, retreat, side step, dip, and pivot are lost. While the straights, uppercuts, and hooks make up the basic boxing arsenal, the aforementioned motions are the connectives that turn punching into boxing. No power over your own movement? You can't fight.

There are a thousand bouts which illustrate the exhaustion of a fighter's legs and the damage it does to his performance, but the most notable example at the upper echelons of boxing is the bout between the man considered by many to be Mexico's greatest boxer (and that's one hell of a field), Julio Cesar Chavez and the fiery Puerto Rican speed demon, Hector 'Macho' Camacho.

Chavez had been a fixture on Mike Tyson undercards for some time. The WBC light welterweight champion, Chavez had gone an astonishing 81-0 in his career up to the Camacho fight, and he'd not just beaten but battered fighters of the caliber of Edwin Rosario and Roger Mayweather. Chavez was one of the meanest punchers in the game, and one of the most accomplished ring cutters in the history of boxing. Angelo Dundee reportedly called Chavez the toughest fighter he had ever seen.

Nothing sums up the sickening beauty of pugilism quite the way Chavez's inside work does. By the final round of his bout with Edwin Rosario, where Chavez emphatically took the WBA lightweight world title, it becomes clear to the viewer that he isn't watching a boxing match so much as a televised assault. And yet the picture perfect head movement, the double ups, and the cringe inducing body blows make it hard to look away.

Chavez's combinations epitomized rhythm in boxing. His blows could seem slow or floaty, and still carry weight. He'd throw out three sluggish blows and sneak in a wickedly fast blow on the end, or throw three hard ones and the opponent would just stare at him as he landed a flush slow ball.

Hector Camacho, meanwhile, was known as much for his flamboyant costumes as his blistering hand speed. Camacho was a southpaw outfighter who relied on timing heavy straight counters, then followed up with shoe shine flurries of blows. His mobile style sometimes saw him accused of running, but he was a wily boxer-puncher who knew when to disengage.

He was also savvy in the rough house tactics. He'd low blow, he'd clinch and wrestle when he needed to, he'd butt. He was by no means just an outfighter. Here he is demonstrating Georges Carpentier's famous 'waltz', taking his man past him and hitting him from behind.



Camacho gets a telling off, but it doesn't really matter because he's just landed a terrific punch and hasn't lost a point.

But the question marks were there for both men. Camacho had recently suffered the first loss of his career in a split decision loss to the American, Greg Haugen. Camacho avenged the loss, but again in a split decision. Meanwhile, Chavez might have been undefeated, but there were cracks showing. The year before, Chavez had met Meldrick Taylor and had been utterly bamboozled by the wicked hand speed of the American.

Down on the cards and about to lose his undefeated record, Chavez knocked Taylor down with seconds remaining in the final round. Taylor rose, but referee, Richard Steele called the fight off with only two seconds on the clock. The call had been incredibly controversial, even if Taylor could barely stand, Chavez wouldn't have been able to get from the corner to him before the round, and therefore the fight, expired. Steele had undeniably saved Chavez's title and record.

The Night of the Fight

I have noted that Chavez was one of boxing's greatest ring cutters. That doesn't mean that he simply cut the ring, pinned his opponent in place and started blasting away with punches. You cannot rely on only having to cut off the ring once or twice a round, and this is where so many boxers stumble. Chavez cut the ring over and over, not simply to get the fight to the ropes, but to force the opponent to move in order to stay away from them.

The first three rounds of Chavez versus Camacho were a case of Chavez cutting off the ring and Camacho exerting energy—desperately pumping the jab, switching directions, or dashing out of the corner. Before the fight Camacho had asserted that Chavez had never met a boxer who understood tie ups and movement as well as he did, and in fairness Camacho made a good go of it. He would switch up directions regularly and attempt to tie up, though Richard Steele (mysteriously the referee once again) broke the men any time Camacho came close to hindering the assault.

Against a lesser ring cutter, the rapid changing of direction exerts a good deal of pressure. He worries about his man circling off the ropes and will leap in with a left or right hook to pin him in place. The fighter along the ropes can force a move to one side and already be escaping towards the other as a fighter punches. Here is an example from Eddie Alvarez's second fight with Michael Chandler.



Cornering an opponent is much harder in a circular cage though, for obvious reasons.

But a ring cutter as great as Chavez works gradually and constantly. There was no leaping in, simply taking space away each time Camacho changed directions. He'd get in, land a couple of shots, and let Camacho run away again or push him off. Both moves requiring a good deal of exertion.

Chavez's style was always to move across the ring in an ordinary stance, then spread his feet and lower his body when he believed he was close enough for the opponent to throw back. And he was a master at knowing when that was too, he'd done this over eighty times in professional bouts and had participated in more fights than many in the boxing press had even attended. If he timed it well, his right hand would shoot through his opponent's lead and hit the mark. The same cross counter—arcing the right across the top of the opponent's jab—got Chavez to the inside a hundred times against orthodox fighters, it rocked Roger Mayweather to his boots, but against the southpaw Camacho it was the straight right which was doing the damage.



Notice how Chavez crouches before throwing, his right leg follows the punch in and he squares up to infight with both hands.

And here, more of the same. Crouch and present the opening, throw the right hand as a counter, step in behind it and square up for what Edwin Haislet called “two handed hitting”.

Camacho spent the entirety of the early going attempting to stay off of the ropes and threw very little, while Chavez had clearly scored some semi-substantial blows. Camacho occasionally went to his favourite shoe shine flurry, a two handed flurry of body blows which Sugar Ray Robinson used to distract judges as he got out of a bad spot. But Camacho was never a heavy hitter, Robinson, like Leonard, used the shoeshine to pitter-patter and get away. Camacho exerted a great deal of energy against Chavez's elbows each time he went to this strategy. And once he moved off, the chase was back on again.

Chavez's body shots were working, but they were occasional. It was Camacho who was gassing himself out. The constant ring circling, the sprinting to get out of corners, the panicked punches to keep Chavez off of him, the shoves as a last resort. All exhausting. By the fourth round, Camacho was lingering on the ropes, but quickly remembering why he shouldn't when Chavez got to work with his infighting.

Moving to the ropes is always a terrible idea as it flattens a fighter's stance and removes his ability to generate power as well as his retreat. We examined this extensively yesterday with the launch of the Jack Slack's Ringcraft series on YouTube:

Against the ropes a fighter has only one real option if he cannot tie up or circle out, to cover up. Now, covering up is a legitimate skill, Joshua Clottey negated much of Manny Pacquiao's hurting power by simply refusing to fight back and adopting his ear muffs. Part of the art of Chavez was that he didn't have a left hook to the body and to the head, he had punches for every inch of the body.

It wasn't about finding openings for his punches, it was about working punches into the existing openings. Chavez would go around the elbows, inside the elbows, under the elbows. He'd stand a fighter up with an excellent left uppercut, exposing their body, then hit them in the body to bring their head forward again for the uppercut. Chavez's punches poured through Camacho's guard like rain through a sieve.

The final round concluded with Camacho clearly hanging on. His heart was tremendous, but he just hadn't been able to counter the effects of Chavez's pressure. He mitigated it in instances, escaping from the ropes time and time again, but the effect it took on his gas tank and movement meant that Chavez had the last laugh.

While the commentators had speculated as to whether each man was past his best, both went on to achieve even more in the sport. Hector Camacho, retired at 79-6-3, winning the IBC welterweight title and even taking the dubious honour of being Sugar Ray Leonard's last fight. Julio Cesar Chavez retired at 107-6-2, having accumulated a record breaking twenty seven defences of various world titles, his ninety fight undefeated streak has never been matched.

Pick up Jack Slack's ebooks at his blog Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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