How To Fight A Southpaw

Here is a quick run down of some key points to remember on how to box against a southpaw. Fighting a southpaw is never easy if you are an orthodox boxer,simply because we just do not come across them often enough, whereas for a southpaw he is most often fighting against an orthodox boxer so the advantage here does lie with the southpaw.

The 1st point you must work on is to aim to get your front foot on the outside, this is probably the most essential tactic you need to do when boxing against a southpaw, without this your distance and timing will be off and the southpaw will be in control. It sounds pretty simple but it isnt, it is not easy to gain outside foot position without the southpaw knowing this so you sometimes find your fighting becomes rounds of just trying to gain control of who gets their foot positioning on the outside.

The next point is trying to outjab a southpaw isnt the greatest of ideas, this is because of the angles involved in when you have two boxers jabbing with opposing hands, one with his left and the other with his right. Your best bet would be to mostly jab at their glove, just to try and create openings.

To counter the southpaws jab, use the parry and then coming over the top of the southpaws jab with your own jab as your main counter – be sure to keep your right hand free, and then throw right hand leads off a jab to their glove.Right hand leads is just advise I feel you should be using against any style but it can be especially effective against a southpaw due to this angle. This was very evident when Floyd Mayweather Jnr fought against Manny
Pacquio, it got to the point where Manny looked very hesistant in committing because he was worried about Mayweather Jnr’s right hand lead after being tagged by this a few times early in the fight.
I also like the extended jab in this position, but the jab goes to the body, so as the southpaw jabs, you bend your knees and jab into their solar plexus.

The other counter I recommend against a southpaw, is slipping to the outside when the southpaw throws his jab, which leaves you to then throw a straight right hand into the southpaws solar plexus, this is probably my favourite counter against a southpaw, especially if you are facing a southpaw with a high jab output, constantly firing jabs at you, this works well to slow them down. To throw this, it is imperative you get your front foot on the
outside, else you will not be able to fire off this punch and you stand a high chance of being unable to slip outside of their jab. You may have heard of a very popular counter against southpaws which is a straight right to the body followed by a left hook to the head, so this is something you can also work on. Another variation of this is instead of slipping to the outside and throwing a straight right to the body, slip outside and throw the straight right to the head – this was something Floyd Mayweather Jnr was very effective at doing.

You have to watch out for the southpaws left cross, if you find yourself struggling to avoid this, I would advise ducking down almost going down to your right to ensure their left cross goes over the top of you, this is not a roll, it is almost like a slip to the outside of their cross but bending at the knees to allow yourself to duck down.

So those are my quick tips on fighting southpaws, practice these one at a time and see how they can help you – good luck!