Fighters Who Struggled Against Southpaws

Hatton is one.

Dariusz Michalczewski is another.

 

Delahoya

 

Wlad.

Apart from Byrd (and Byrd was pulling his teeth better than anyone at that point) Fury, in his SP stance, long-armed Tony the Tiger befuddled him a good bit especially the first fight.

Vitali too... Byrd aside, he had issues with JC Gomez... not any chance of losing, just ugly and awkward until he finally wore him down.

 

Yup. Beat me to it.

Only southpaw he excelled against was a washed up Camacho.

I think it's a very real possibility that the mid-80s Camacho would beat DLH.

 

Reggie Strickland

 

Bruce Strauss

 

How many southpaws did De La Hoya actually face?

Camacho, Whitaker and Pacquiao? I don't think him losing to two of the best southpaws ever meant he couldn't deal a southpaw, I think it just means he wasn't the better man, vs those two southpaws.

 

Obviously Sanders massively troubled one and annihilated the other.

 

Delahoya struggled with the southpaw stance, not just Whitaker and pacquaio. His girlish right hand was mostly to blame

 

"Struggled" is maybe the wrong word, but Mayweather seemed to have some issues when going up against southpaws.

 

That's the main reason I would take prime Whitaker over prime Floyd.

It's not that Whitaker was some full level above, it's that the styles favor Whitaker.

 

Ti be honest, i think a better thread would be fighter that don't struggle against southpaw since pretty much everyone struggles against them bat a few exceptions

 

Both Duran and Chavez were effective against southpaws.

Trinidad handled southpaws well.

Two Aussie legends, Fenech and Tszyu, were both very good against southpaws.

 

Rj had a reputation for being a southpaw killer before the tarver fiascos....

 

He did yep, and he did it by breaking all of the conventional "rules" for an orthodox fighter facing a southpaw. That Wilson Kayden guy on YouTube did a really good breakdown of it actually, was quite interesting.

 

Honestly, it's hard for the most part to say that a boxer is good or bad against spm take hatton for example. Sure he got blasted by pac, and struggled against collazo, but that was also a case of pac being a legend, and collazo being a solid and bigger fighter (as i said, hatton was winning easily early on).

Same for zoo, sure he blasted judah and Mitchell (in the re) early in the re, but he looked like shit against him the forst time around.

Most fighteres face so few southpaw that its jard to gauge correctly how they handle them

 

Really? I recall rj success against southpaws being mostly based on his lead right hand, which is the conventional punch to use against sp

 

What Jones did was instead of keeping his lead foot outside the lead the foot of a southpaw, he actually stepped inside the wheelhouse, which is dangerous because it puts you directly in line for the southpaw left hand, BUT more advantageous to land the lead right, or the hook.

You can only pull that off if you have exceptional reflexes, which Roy did. When his reflexes slipped juuuust enough to get caught... well, you saw what Tarver did.

 

The Hall fight is the perfect example. Right off the bat, Roy is moving in what conventional wisdom tells you is the wrong way against a SP. And yet, he immediately starts painting Hall with lead rights, then a check hook over Hall's shoulder, which hurt Hall, and started the massacre.

 

Yeah Zoo really didnt care for cuties at all

 

what's interesting is even southpaws have trouble fighting southpaws. it all comes down to familiarity. righty or lefty are not used to facing lefties. the other thing is, in the case of lefty vs. righty, the lefty is perfectly used to facing righties, whereas the righty is less used to it, as i said.

in rjj's case, he faced a lot of lefties actually, which I'm sure contributed to his success against them.

 

I might add, the point I made about Roy's foot placement against southpaws, Ray Leonard did the same thing against Ayub Kalule - intentionally stepped inside the wheelhouse instead of keeping his lead foot outside. In doing so, he ate a few Kalule left hands, but he realized that Kalule couldn't really hurt him. His foot placement allowed him to nail Kalule easier.

Unlike Oscar, Leonard didn't appear to have any issues with southpaws. One, because he had a right hand. And two, because he had a fluid, creative style, while Oscar was stiff and robotic.

 

Am i missing something, or the ony southpaw oscar struggled against in his prime was pea?. I recall him having a field day with Camacho

 

Napoles did it as well. Lit Backus up.

 

Nap's footwork was flawless.

 

I thought Floyd was slightly more aggressive, and therefore more hittable, against lefties. Maybe not against Guerrero and Pacquiao, but in fights prior to that.

I think Whitaker from late 80s up til about 94 or 95’ beats Floyd at those weights (135-147) in a close fight. Whitaker had that great jab and a better workrate, and he was so imaginative and creative with his use of angles. He was a little freer with his hands and combos and that would be one of the main differences

 

That probably explains, at least in part, why he looked so pathetic against camacho when his reflexes were shot. Seems like he couldn't avood the left to save his lofe

 

Exactly.

 

Thinking about it, rj success against sp might be overstated. Sure he beat a lot of them easily, but some of his worst performances were also against sp

 

He might not be the optimal choice here, but there's no southpaw in history who would be favored over a prime Jones.

Edit: Well, prime Hagler might be too much for a green Jones at 160. But no other southpaw outside of Marvin would have a chance.