Should Holding Be banned in the Professional Boxing Game?
November 26th, 2009
By Adam Fillingham: Now there is nothing worse that watching a boxing fight with more holding, than punches being thrown. It makes for a boring night in and is especially bad if you have paid for the fight. So fighters if your reading. Hold off on all the hugging.
The sport is going threw a rather large bad patch as it is and if new fans are going to be put off by watching a fight full of two fat slobs hugging, then it’s bad for business. The sport needs as many new fans as possible and the sheer amount of holding (especially by heavyweights) means that less hard core fans, or new fans wont tune in to watch fights.
What is needed is a happy medium. The referees need to either allow holding to go on and make boring fights, or there should be no amount of holding what so ever and the fighters should be split up immediately. Once the referees and governing bodies have come to a decision then the decision must stay consistent other wise it is unfair on fighters.
If one fight is allowing an inside master to work his magic by holding on and then fighting then that’s fine, but if another fight an inside master cannot do his trade because the outside master is allowed to use his reach it gives one man an advantage over the other. So at this moment in time fights can be going one way or another due to the referee.
Lets sort it out.
I’d like to hear your views on this.
Tags: 9 Responses to “Should Holding Be banned in the Professional Boxing Game?”
Leave a Reply
please use above banner to link back to us!
Holding in boxing is like the “Hack a Shaq” in the NBA.It’s not pretty but it’s a tactic that works if you are trying to drain the energy of your opponent not to mention if you lean on him with all your weight,it’a killer on their stamina.Lennox Lewis,Ali,and even Big George Foreman used it on smaller guys and they won big fights.
excessive clinching is illegal in boxing. as has already been said, fighters may use a clinch effectively and then punch their way back out of it. being broken up by the referee if its deemed too long.
however, i do think it should be penalised more often, as some fighters do take the biscuit with it. if they continue to clinch for long periods of time a point should be deducted.
not only does it make them look like idiots scared to take on the man they signed up to fight, it is making boxing more and more of a laughing stock.
the powers that be need to do more in the way of making bouts flow more freely, forcing competitors to fight in a more dynamic, exciting manner. either that, or ufc takes over and boxing falls by the wayside
Hatton is a terrible holder. And andre direll against froch went beyond a joke. Yeah it should be kept to a minimum it annoys me
clinching is apart of the sport as a fighter you are supposed to fight out of a clinch and if not then the ref should splitt the fighters and in the heavyweights they clinch so much because nobody wants to give up weight so they carry more weight than they can fight with if you looke at the average wieght of the fighters 35 years ago they are about 2 stone lighter than todays bloaters the prooof is in the pudding looke at all the best heavyweights in history all are about 14 and half stone to 16 and a half stone now look at the average heavyweight weight today
the americans are the worst for it
chosen901 – Fighters who dont have the stamina to stay in a fight without holding should be punished for it. There is no real reason why holding should be so blatantly overlooked by (mostly american) referees. Give a warning the first time and deduct a point everytime after that. That should stop spoilers doing their dirty work, or at least make them fight MMA.
The game plan of many boxers is to punch then hold, in my mind it is cheating and shouldn’t be allowed. The clinching as the Americans call it is then a very good way of “”accidently butting the opponent. This clinching often covers poor fitness as the fighter tires they hold on to rest. Surely this is not what boxing is about. When Hopkins and Calzaghe met it was ridiculous, Hopkins fought for about 30 seconds and clinched for the rest. I guarantee that Ruiz’s game plan will be to clinch Haye. This also saps the strength of the opponent by leaning on them, imagine if Valuev had done that to Haye? Fans want boxers to stand and fight but to overcome the clinching they have to move. In fights in the UK with just the referee’s decision I have seen fighters disqualified for continually holding. It is definitely spoiling the sport and should be sorted out.
I’ll admit i’v never gone 12 rounds, but i’v had my fair share of fights, and sparing. Boxing is made for entertainment, not to see two men hug each other.
Holding should be banned completely. Ten we would see boxing and not wrestling.