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believes it is a perfectly permissible tactic. Speaking to Chris Mannix on the Boxing with Mannix and Mora podcast after Artur Beterbiev outpointed Dmitry Bivol to claim the undisputed light heavyweight championship back in October, Mora said Bivol’s lack of clinching cost him the fight. “Bivol should have made him miss and back up the monster with the older legs. He had surgery, Beterbiev. You got to force that knee backwards,” said Mora. “Monsters don’t like backing up. When you clinch them and back them up, they don’t like that.” This month, we will see Tyson Fury attempt to regain the Ring Magazine heavyweight crown against Oleksandr Usyk in their highly anticipated rematch in Saudi Arabia. Leading into their first fight in May, conventional wisdom suggested that Fury would succeed if he used his substantial bulk to bully ex- cruiserweight king Usyk around the ring and lean on him in close. But Usyk never allowed it. The clever Ukrainian southpaw used his nimble footwork to dart in and out of range, boxing small while Fury boxed tall. Usyk, who gave away six inches in height and almost 40 pounds in weight, was able to turn Fury regularly when the big Brit attempted to tie him up. When Fury did manage to clinch, Usyk proved to be surprisingly strong on the inside, refusing to wilt under his weight. And in something of a genius move, Usyk simply held him back in a passive clinch, forcing referee Mark Nelson to move in quickly to call a break. Usyk ultimately prevailed on the cards via split decision after hurting Fury in the ninth frame and then deftly avoiding the Gypsy King’s attempts to clinch, stepping around him to fire off hard shots that left his opponent draped on the ropes. But the question remains: What exactly is a fair clinch, and when is a boxer trying to game the system? That, gentle reader, is up to you to decide.
of guys are just interested in how they look,” he said. “As the referee, they’re the star of the show and they don’t actually get into the nitty-gritty. You really need to get into the trenches with the fighters. They don’t. “If you really get into the zone with the fighters, you need to take the rules and regulations with you rather than leaving them at home. You have to be prepared to impose those rules, and that’s when you’ll become a better referee and you won’t allow these things.
not, the ref will break it up. You could see fighters who aren’t interested in fighting on the inside, who are just looking to utilize or weaponize clinches, taking that to the absolute extreme every time. In pro wrestling where you have, like, five seconds to break a hold, there would 100 percent be fighters and trainers who would look to gain by that. It’s really difficult to allow for any kind of clinching if you want to totally avoid people using it in a nefarious way. That’s not compelling television, right?” In a broad sense, great fights have little to no clinching. But under that umbrella term sits passive clinches, when a boxer ties up his opponent to soak up time to recover, and active clinches, when the fighters are grappling on the inside for position with the intent of creating angles for their offensive arsenal. Defining a legal clinch as opposed to an illegal clinch is the issue.
“It can make a good fight bad and an average fight horrible.”
“I’m not putting myself up as Mr. Perfect. I’m far from it. I inadvertently let things happen; I let things slide too. But I’m very much more aware now of these sorts of little things now, and I’ve done some fights where one guy is just holding and the biggest part of his repertoire is doing just that. “When we look at that, we’ve got to say ‘OK, we really need to start penalizing fighters and let them know.’ There’s no point saying, ‘I’ll take a point off you.’ How many times do you hear a boxing referee say, ‘Hey, mate, don’t do that. I’m going to take a point off you,’ and they never do? That’s the problem. “You don’t get any points for holding. That’s not the name of our sport. You’re only going to waste energy if you’re only going to try to hold on to your opponent. It shows to me that they are trying to nullify their opponent’s attack not with counterpunching – not with parrying, not with ducking and weaving and slipping punches – but by holding. “So basically if they win, they’re beating a legitimate fighter with a foul.” Not everyone agrees. Former titleholder turned pundit Sergio Mora
“You and I both agree that if you have your hands free and if you’re working out of the clinch, that’s fine,” said Erdman. “And that creates good action. Guys working out of the clinch, that’s in effect inside fighting. The problem becomes if you look to fully eradicate inside fighting, it could then make boxing look very technical. “Take European amateur boxing, where the moment you touch on the inside, there’s a break. And then there’s a lot of referee interference, which can really screw with the tempo of a fight. Those are the thoughts in my mind when it comes to that, too. In a perfect world, to instantaneously identify what is an illegal maneuver on the inside was a clinch and just taking those out, yes, that would automatically make every fight a little bit more exciting. But in execution, it becomes a little bit trickier.” The solution, according to Vocale, lies with the referees. “We get into the ring, we’ve got our bowtie nice and square, we’ve got our nice blue shirt neatly pressed, and a lot
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