Boxing, at it’s heart is a lot like magic… with the obvious exception that you get to punch your audience in the face. Nevertheless, the tools of the magician are not so different from the tactics employed by the master boxer.
A Bit Of Sleight Of Hand
The term I’d like to introduce is misdirection.
Misdirection as it relates to combat is an umbrella term for diverting your opponent’s attention for the express purpose of making them pay for it. It’s a way to constrain chaos by leveraging pattern setting and pattern reading. This isn’t confined to the sport of boxing either. These principles hold true for any combat system.
Boxers utilize misdirection for myriad reasons: guard manipulation (e.g., getting your opponent to move their arms up, down, etc.), blinding the opponent’s line of sight, disruption of rhythm or position, eliciting a counter attack, etc. These are all used in effect for defensive or offensive purposes. Remember: attention is a currency. You’d rather your opponent spend it all in one place where you control the game.
Pick A Card, Any Card.
Going from abstract to slightly less abstract, let’s subdivide misdirection into a few categories: feinting, feeding, and setting false targets. This isn’t an exhaustive list, mind you, but it’s meant to illustrate that there are many different implementations of the same concept.
I’ve used Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs Juan Manuel Marquez for each Case Study.
Feeding
This has nothing to do with food. Unless you count a knuckle sandwich. Feeding is the act of throwing a punch or combination of punches to elicit a response. As I’ve defined feeding, the punches needn’t have any power behind them, but they must be thrown with the intent to make contact. It is this intent to make contact that distinguishes feeding from the other methods of misdirection on our list.
Case Study: at 0:54 of Round 8
Mayweather: Notices that Marquez has begun throwing the counter left hook in response to his lead right hand. Mayweather knows he can put Marquez out of position. He throws the lead right.
Marquez: Sees the lead right coming. He throws the counter left hook.
Mayweather: Rolls under the hook and steps to his right, putting Marquez off balance and having to adjust with an awkward pivot.
To the layman it may have appeared that Mayweather had reflexes bordering on precognition or that he possessed precognition itself. However, in this scenario it was the use of noticing a pattern that allowed him to exploit it.
Pros:
- Contact is generally more threatening and can more readily elicit a response.
- The chance for damage is there because you’re making contact.
Cons:
- Whenever you throw a punch, you necessarily open yourself to counters.
- Speed. Your punch has to travel the full distance to make contact.
- Energy. Throwing to make contact means more energy expended.
Feinting
No, not fainting, I’m talking about feinting. A feint is a perceived attack, not an actual one. Feinting is usually preceded by a bit of pattern setting. Without setting a pattern early on, you’ll find the con more difficult to sell. Prior setup is paramount. Setting
Feints come in many flavors. You can pump your fist, drop your weight sharply, take a quick half step forward, etc. The main thing is that the feint must resemble body movements that precede the actual punch! If you’re trying to get your opponent to react to a left hook, you wouldn’t pull your right hand back.
Feinting can also be used defensively to disrupt an opponent’s rhythm and/or timing. The next time you’re boxing with someone who has caught onto your timing, or is boxing in rhythm, you can make use of feints at odd intervals to get them to be wary of committing.
Case Study: at 1:41 of Round 2
Mayweather: Has been throwing the body jab, dropping his level to great effect. Marquez has begun to use his rear hand to parry which Mayweather notices. Mayweather drops his level, having primed Marquez to think a body jab is coming.
Marquez: Attention fully on the perceived body jab, drops his rear hand to parry.
Mayweather: Throws a rising left hook/uppercut instead.
The feint here was the sudden drop in weight. Due to positional ambiguity, it was difficult for Marquez to recognize which punch Mayweather would throw because the position of the body jab was used to throw the rising left hook/uppercut. Mayweather’s use of priming Marquez for the body jab early on enabled gave him the ability to approach certainty about how Marquez would react. Marquez fell for the con. Hook, line and sinker.
Pros:
- Speed. It’s faster to fake than it is to throw a punch to make contact.
- Energy. You’ll conserve energy by not committing to an actual attack.
- Defense. Defensive position isn’t compromised because you’re not opening up.
Cons:
- Can be less threatening. If you can’t sell your feint, your opponent won’t react.
- No chance of damage for your opponent from a feint, only from your counter.
False Targets
If feeding involves actually making contact while feinting involves not making contact but at least gives the illusion of threat through movement, is there something that requires even less energy?
Yes. I call it false targets. In practice, I call it, setting false targets. You may know this by another name. Some people refer to this as drawing or baiting.
As mentioned above, when you’re setting false targets, you aren’t actually threatening your opponent. Rather, you’re taking a different tact. You’re giving them the illusion of an opening. As with everything else on this list, there are many ways to achieve this: weight distribution, head placement, hand placement, etc. The key here is subtlety. The opponent shouldn’t sense that you’re trying to goad them into a trap. It needs to feel authentic. If you drop your right hand all the way down and stick your chin out, they may not take the bait. When setting false targets, the emphasis is on getting the opponent to throw what you want them to throw as well as where, when and how you want them to throw it.
Whenever possible, it’s preferable to set your trap in such a way that it puts your opponent out of position.
Case Study: at 2:32 of Round 6
Mayweather: Sets his head just slightly off the center line to his left and shifts his weight to his lead leg expecting a jab from Marquez.
Marquez: Sees the opening and throws the jab.
Mayweather: Executes the pull counter by moving his head just out of range, having created the space and forcing Marquez to punch short and across his own body. The right hand lands flush and he ducks a counter right hand, pivoting to his left and leaving Marquez, once again, out of position.
The false target here was the initial head positioning from Mayweather. In giving Marquez an opening, he could dictate Marquez’s actions - all without his knowledge. Mayweather controlled the initial action with little to no energy. That is the goal of setting false targets. It is an expression of control that you see at the highest levels of combat.
Pros:
- It requires the least amount of energy to create a false target.
- You can potentially manufacture situations that are harder to create with merely feinting or feeding by getting your opponent to reach or punch short.
Cons:
- The cost of getting it wrong is high if you leave an opening and misread intent.
- No chance for damage from merely setting a false target, the damage is in the counter.
And For My Last Trick
Hopefully, regardless of your level and your role (coach, boxer, referee or ardent fan) and independent of your preferred method of combat, this gives you a useful mental model for thinking about this exciting dimension of the sport. Though the concepts are few, implementation is nigh infinite, and there’s a wealth of techniques to be explored.