The body shot knockout is one of my personal favorites. A huge blow to to the body and seconds later, in a delayed reaction, a fighter crashes to the canvas in excruciating pain. The afflicted fighter is hurt but still aware. He knows when it comes on and there’s almost nothing they can do about it. The body shot is supreme.
Today I want to look at a specific situation involving body shots: an orthodox fighter landing a lead hook to the body against a southpaw.
Before we dive into the video, I want to take a minute to talk about the differences between southpaw and orthodox for the new guys. An orthodox fighter is right handed and when boxing, their left hand and foot is facing forward. A southpaw has the opposite, the right hand and is forward. Southpaws aren’t necessarily left handed and has unique advantages like giving orthodox fighters different looks than what they’re used to against orthodox fighters.
Southpaw and Human Anatomy
The southpaw stance is unique because of the fewer amount of southpaws to fight and spar with. When a promising orthodox fighter takes on a southpaw for the first time, it is often seen as a trap fight and a test.
But what’s not often talked about is the advantages an orthodox fighter has over a southpaw. With a southpaw standing right hand forward, that also puts their right side to the front. With the body shot hinging on connecting with the liver, an orthodox fighter usually has their right side to the back, protected better than a southpaw. But a southpaw puts the fighter in danger with exposing the liver even more with the right side facing forward.
The King: Ryan Garcia
While fighters like Canelo and others are adept at the lead hook to the body of a southpaw, Ryan Garcia has given us some of the best examples of how effective the technique is.
Ryan Garcia’s brother, Sean Garcia, happens to be a southpaw. Growing up together as a boxing family, the two sparred all the time. This gives Ryan Garcia a unique advantage. Generally a southpaw is a trap fight because of the lack of available sparring partners, as we previously mentioned. But for Ryan Garcia, he’s seen a southpaw all his life. He knows the in’s and out’s of a southpaw. His brother gives him a unique advantages against southpaws like Luke Campbell and Javier Fortuna.
Garcia has used the lead hook to the body of a southpaw quite a bit in his career. In this example we see him versus former Olympic silver medalist Luke Campbell. Campbell had dropped Garcia earlier in the fight and Garcia was forced to dig deep to come back from the first drop of his career.
In round seven, (1) Garcia will step into fighting range with Campbell and show him a right feint. Campbell thinks to himself, “The right cross is coming,” and brings up his hands to block the cross. (2) With Campbell’s right arm high, the path to the body is wide as day and Garcia loads up the left hand to land to the body. (3) The left lands perfectly and shuts down the body of Campbell who cannot continue.
While Ryan Garcia has many flaws to his boxing game, he has great hand speed and an eye for openings that he finds quite often. He’s fought Campbell, Jamal Herring, and Noe Martinez Raygoza. All three fighters are southpaws and in all three fights, Ryan Garcia has attacked the liver dutifully. It’s one of his best secrets against the southpaw. While the punch is no secret, Garcia utilized it better than most.
