Why don't more boxers train to fight both southpaw and conventional?

Question

It seems like only amateur fighters do this.

Sorry for not being clearer. I meant to fight both as a southpaw and conventional - not against them.

Answer 1

Good question. Yes it would seem to be the best foil. But like other sports they just go with their strengths such as fighting the conventional stance and they stick with it. It's like rugby where they don't like to pass off either there right or left hand side, its just laziness, or David Beckham doesn't have a left foot. This comes with early skill development.

Answer 2

I fight Thai boxing, or Muay Thai professionally, and as we box too, I can tell you that we train all moves, changing which leg we lead with all the time.

And when I was in martial arts, (Ju-Jitsu), it was always 50% left foot forward, and 50% right foot forward when learning moves.

But...whilst it is nice and confusing for the opponent to 'switch' during a bout, I must confess I do get 'caught' more often in the right foot forward / southpaw stance.

And so it may be that boxers (with heavier punching power), may not be able to take this chance.

Just a thought...

Answer 3

I understood your question before you clarified it. Well basically, right handed is better, but the lead foot gets stepped on by south paws. So switching would make sense. But then you fight their personal style, very dangerous. There really is no point fighting south except to confuse them at a pivotal point in a fight. Naseem Hamed did both sides, it worked good when he'd switch. He was an exception though. Very talented but WWWAAAYYY to cocky for his own good. FYI, I don't know why, but in wrestling I loved wrestling left, I was better left actually. Very confusing, idk why I do that, I am a ambidextrous, but mostly a righty. I think the best people who'd be able to train both sides are ambidextrous people like me, or lefties because it's a right handed world. I don't think rightys can do it well. The brain is wired in reverse from rightys to lefties. Hope I answered a little bit. PS, I answered your Rocky question too, remember Rocky 2? He was left converted to right, though it is fiction, I thought the two questions coinsided a bit, did you watch it recently?

Answer 4

you mean switch hitting its very hard to do its akward or more akward for a conv fighter to do than a southpaw alot of southpaws fight in the conventional style and change gives them a added thing in there bag of tools its hard to fight a southpaw as in the gym alot more conventional fighters thats why there better but look at hagler, naz, and joe galzaghe good examples of switch hitters. its like if your right handed try writeing with ya left hand not good or very hard, messy so ya dont want to do that in the ring i can handle messy writeing but not a messy face

Answer 5

Hagler was a switch hitter, for most if not all his boxing career. It is not necessary for a boxer to learn how to fight as a southpaw, but it is necessary to learn how to box a southpaw.

Answer 6

The reason is fighter play to there strengths and become top class at particular skills. Some fighters are talented enuf to do both, joe calzaghe for example. Also its physically more demanding to fight with ur weeker and slower arm.

Answer 7

they do

it depends on who the next bout is against
if they are fighting a southpaw they train against a south paw and vice versa!

Answer 8

Southpaw is the standard for boxing but you could break a hand.

Answer 9

Because it's very difficult. Can you write with both hands?

Answer 10

i think that they train for individual fights rather than one way then the other. if your going to fight a lefty then train that way or vice versa. since you rarley fight more than one person a fight there is only the need to learn the style of that person. righty or lefty