There’s Nothing New in Boxing

The Cincinnati Cobra was one of the greatest boxers of all time, for me he is top ten all time and I included him in my article on the greatest boxers of all time. Charles was extensively studied by the likes of Boxing coach Bill Miller, who of course imparted the methods of Charles onto modern great James Toney.

In recent years Floyd Mayweather Jr gets a lot of credit for his jab to the body and one of the tricks he would use was he would throw the jab to the body and then he would throw the left hook to the head but he would make his left hook look like a jab to the body, often this would catch the opponent out as they would be tricked into thinking it was a jab to the body that was coming.

Before Floyd Mayweather Jr did this though, Roy Jones Jr was doing the exact same thing with his jab to the body and then making the left hook look like a jab to the body but well before both of them did this, Ezzard Charles was doing this half a century earlier in the 1940’s and 50’s.

Charles would jab to the body and the instant he saw his opponents hand drop to defend the body jab, he would feint the body jab and turn it into a left hook to the head. Sometimes the opponent may become wise to the feint knowing that Charles was instead going to throw the left hook to the head, forcing them to duck but Charles would simply wait for the reaction and opt for another punch instead to catch them ducking so you can see this body jab and body jab feint opened up a lot of other avenues to land punches. But it wasn’t always the left hook Charles could use off the body jab feint, he could also introduce the right hand to the body off the body jab feint making it even harder to predict what he was going to do – watch the video below to see Ezzard Charles in action and demonstrating how to turn the body jab into a left hook to the head.