When it comes to throwing the left hook, there were few better than RJJ. Roy Jones Jr was so good at throwing the hook that one of his nicknames was Captain Hook.
The video below looks at one of the ways Roy Jones Jr went about setting up the hook. This is a fairly common method of setting up the hook but what is important in this video isn’t that hook off the jab feint – something I have discussed in three videos on my youtube channel(3 ways to hook off the jab) but how he set up the left hook off the jab feint in the build up to executing the move.
We can see Jones begins by throwing the double jab, the first jab is thrown at the opponents gloves and the second jab is thrown lower at the opponents body. Now Jones doesn’t look like he has any intention of landing the first jab he is throwing, that is why he is touching the opponents gloves, he is either using this jab as a decoy or he is measuring his range to find out what he needs to do in order to land the punch he is setting his opponent up for.
In my opinion his opponent knows full well that Jones is setting him up – he just doesn’t know what exactly Jones will come out with, in pretty quick succession Roy Jones Jr has thrown a number of double jabs at the opponent, each time the first jab falls short at the gloves and the second goes to the body. Now is his opponent expecting a hook off the next jab? He could just as well be expecting a right hand or another jab this time aimed at his face so there is an element of indecision here.
After three attempts at this double jab Jones then decides to execute the trap, Jones does this by first feinting the jab, so he is not even touching the gloves with the jab now – he then follows it up by throwing the left hook, which lands flush and knocks his opponent down. Now if you look closely you can see the opponents indecision coming into play after the first jab feint because his blocking hand moves slightly lower down, meaning he was likely expecting another body jab after the jab feint. This left enough of a window for Jones to land his left hook – and that’s how Captain Hook went about setting up the hook…
