Okay, I've been doing some research on boxers who could punch really hard and I've found 2 who really stand out to me. Jack Dempsy and Rocky Marciano. Dempsey weighed 180 and fought people as big as 260. (the heavyweight division started at 175 lbs back then) I've read his book and found it amazingly enlightening and it even converted me from a 2 knuckle horizonal fist puncher to a 3 knuckle vertical fist puncher. Dempsey used some "internal" martial art power generations techniques in his punch. He threw his whole bodyweight into his punches and used "full body power".

But Rocky Marciano stands out the most. For those who don't know, "Rocky Marciano is the ONLY undefeated champion in ANY weight class in the history of gloved boxing." His record was 49-0-0. He also had the shortest arms of any heavyweight fighter in history. He also had the greatest knockout ratio of any fighter in history. 88%

Of Marciano they said,"He never sought refuge in a clinch,never tired, and couldn't be hurt....He was an unstoppable force, breaking bodies and spirits. It was a hellish experiance to fight him...Like Dempsey and Louis, he was able to get his whole body into a punch."

When Marciano was destroying all challengers with his blockbuster assault, the U.S. Testing Co. was asked to measure the power of Rocky's wallop. Its findings:

My favorite thing about him:
"Marciano's knockout blow packs more explosive energy than an armour-piercing bullet and represents as much energy as would be required to spot lift 1000 pounds one foot off the ground." Boxing Illustrated December 1963

To this I say: "Holy ••••!"

"As indestructible as any fighter in history, Marciano walked into-and through- thousands of hard, clean, jolting shots in the manner of a human steamroller, wrecking his opponents with baseball-bat swings to the arms, the midsection, the head, and just about anything else in reach. Always ready to take two or three punches to land one, the determined Marciano melted down the guards of his opponents, and with the shortest arms in the history of the heavyweight division, hewed them down to size." He said of Marciano's right hand power punch, called the "Suzie-Q", "It was one of the most devastating weapons ever brought into a ring."

Another thing Marciano had that noone could match was his conditioning. He ran miles everyday. He also ran hills over and over and over again to build explosive leg power and even more conditioning. He even ran on Christmas day. He could keep throwing ko punches past the 12th round (this was back when title fights went 15 rounds)

Looking at a few pictures of him punching I think the key to his power was that he threw his whole bodyweight into every punch, using forward momentum and hip twist. He also got leg strength into the punch too. Basically he hit with whole body power. He also used a 300 lbs heavy bag instead of the 70 or 80 lbs bags most people hit. I want one of these 300 lbs bags.

Anyway, I'm off to go run some hills, do some pull ups and pushups, and hit my little sissy 80 lbs heavy bag. If I had to vote between a master of Hsing-I and Rocky Marciano. I'm sorry Tim but I'm putting my money on the guy who could generate more punching power than a bullet.

P.S. From breaking 1 1/2 inch thick rocks in the yard I've decided that for hitting the head, I'm using my palms. Soft vs. hard (palm vs. skull), hard vs. soft (fist vs. body). Just like you recommend. I've repented and have seen the error of my ways. If I lived in CA i'd walk 10 miles in bare feet to attend shen wu academy.

At least until I can do hundreds of knuckle pushups on a concrete floor with iron weight plates placed under my knuckles. (one of my goals) then maybe I'll start punching people in the head again. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll just abandon my silly ways and move to California and become Tim's most obsessed student. Training 6 hours a day and using a tape recorder to make a record of everything he says so I can study it in my spare time. Or maybe not.

Great commentary on an outstanding boxer. But has it ever occurred to you that you are a little strange?

No, sadly, he is insane.

Mont,

Interesting post. One thing you need to take into consideration before devoting your life to becoming Rocky Marciano, he had unbelievable genetics.

Read the line again about "walking into and through thousands of clean, jolting shots..." That's an innate ability. I've heard Marciano decided to become a professional boxer because as an amateur, losing most of his fights, he discovered no matter how hard he got hit, he never got knocked out. You may not be so genetically fortunate.

Mont F. Cessna Jr., I don't think you're crazy... I think you are walking the road to Demascus.

You're very close to becoming my favorite poster.

Bob #2

Gee! Is't that nice maybe he'll roll over, bark and lick your hand on command now. What do you think Bob#2?

Tim,

I'm not about to devote my life to being Rocky Marciano. I'm already taller than him, I don't have short limbs and while I've been known to take some hard shots to the head I'm seriously doubt I could ever walk headlong into a barrage of punches from a heavyweight boxer and not be extrememly adversly affected. I'll be content to try to develop a sledge hammer punch and use some defense to keep the nose nice and the face from looking like Bob #2's kung fu racoon attacked me.

But Tim if you were fighting Marciano and by some miracle you got him on the ground you would clean his clock.

Bob #2,

I'm a little confused by your post. I don't understand what you exactly mean.

I must say that if Tim put a beng quan or pi quan on Rocky Marciano he would be one of the following: suffering serious bodily injury or lucky to be alive. Either way, the fight would be over. To suggest that Tim could not clean Rocky's clock or even get him on the ground is a gross underestimation of his skill level.

Gerardo,

Remember, Rocky Marciano got hit all the time by professional, world class, heavyweight boxers. The first time he was ever knocked down in a fight was the fight he won his world championship title. He was down for only a 3 count after getting hit in the temple with a perfect hook. Why is it that so many tradional martial artists look upon professional boxers as incompetnent fools not able to take a punch or give one?

Really, the punching power of an excellent internal fighter might be tremendous but its not like a bigger stronger, external fighter can't match it. I doubt that 99% of internal masters (hsing-i, tai chi, bagua, ect.) can hit as hard as the average heavyweight boxer. Lets throw these guys in a pit with george forman (he's like 51 or something so the 50 year old masters have nothing to complain about when they get their heads ripped off)

I respect internal martial artists but too few of them train anywhere nearly hard enough or are strong enough or big enough to hit really hard.

For those who say, "I got hit by master so and so and I couldn't breath he hit me so hard...yada yada yada. He must be the most powerful puncher in the world. Yada yada yada." Remember, most of you are weak, little, unconditioned fighters with low hit resistance. Boxers get hit all the time with punches and grow stronger and increase their hit resistance through hundreds of hours of full contact sparring in the gym.

I'll most likely get tons of hate-filled responses to this thread but somebody's got to stand up and say, "The power generation principles of internal martial arts are amazing but they are not the only answer in a fight. I like them a lot and they have added a lot of power to my straight punching but they are not the end all, the only truth."

And finally, "Martial arts instructors ARE NOT GODS!" I think Tim is the most competent, skilled martial arts instructor I had ever heard of but I don't think he is indestructable, capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Tim teaches martial arts to a lot of people. Tim does not train 8 hours a day to become a one man killing machine and does not fight for a living. He is amazing but he is not the God of fighting.

Hopefully Tim understands the intentent of what I'm trying to say and won't hate me.

Monty,

You're making several assumptions in your post to me and seemingly putting words into my mouth. I know what it's like to take a punch with bare knuckles and I know what it's like to take a punch with gloves. I've had my face blasted straight-on, and I saw stars. I don't doubt Rocky's ability to punch or take a punch. I do not underestimate boxers as martial artists. And I agree with you that 99% of the so-called internal masters cannot hit as hard as a heavyweight boxer. It's not my fault that 99% of the so-called masters don't know what the hell they're doing. I can only trust in the 1% that do. With the self-confidence that Tim has, I wouldn't worry about him taking offense to anything you've said. But I am being honest with you when I say that his skills are not limited to the ground and, if you know how to properly execute a piquan or bengquan (without gloves LOL!) it's going to rock your world. It's really going to f*** your day up. I am not the guy wearing silk pajamas and talking about chi. I am not learning martial arts for health. My personal belief is that boxing could learn a lot from internal arts and vice versa. But whatever.

Mont, also remember that the bottom line is in what you mention in your post, mainly in how hard one trains. Don't worry about differences in "internal" and "external", that only exists in the feverish imaginations of those that Gerardo refers to who wear silk pajamas and blubber about chi-power.

Gerardo,
Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Mont,
For sure, my swolen ankle keeps reminding me I'm not indestructable.

Listen to Kenneth, any practical and proven method can teach one how to fight, acquisition of skill mainly depends on the intensity of training.

An additional thing to take into consideration about Rocky Marciano when discussing his punching power - look at his legs. He had absolutely huge legs. Before boxing he played baseball as a catcher and spent hours in a deep squat position. Boxers today tend to have relatively skinny legs in comparison to their upper bodies (the most recent exeption being Naseem Hamed - also capable of tremendous power punching)

Tsurugi,

Excellent point about leg strength. As we all know good body mechanics are essential for full body power, and since the legs are the base of the body they gotta be just as strong as the rest, if not stronger. Crap, I guess I gotta stop making excuses for skimping on my lower body weightlifting


Hi Mont,

I also assume that Tim is now just a full time teacher, but don't forget that the whole reason his school is so great is because he puts the neijia arts back into the intense and practical realm of real fighting. And before he was helping educate us all about real neijia he was doing some serious full-contact fighting.

Monty,

I liked your commentary on Rocky Marciano. Can you school us on Jake LaMotta. My understanding is that he could take a punch well too. What was his punching ability like?

I think some people are forgetting a couple of things about boxing gloves and if a bengquan could knock out a world class pro boxer.

UNLIKE AMATEUR BOXING GLOVES AND THE KIND OF GLOVES THAT PEOPLE USE WHEN SPARRING. PROFESSIONAL BOXING GLOVES ARE DESIGNED TO TRANSMIT FORCE AND NOT ABSORB IT.

They are only made to protect the hand and to decrease the amount of facial cuts and bruising caused by bone on bone contact. The force of the blow is not reduced by much at all. The reduction in force is also made up considerably by the fact that the gloves weigh something which is in effect like your fist weighing more. Thus more impact. The fact that you can punch harder with gloves on because you don't have to worry at all about hand injury leads me to believe that a boxer with an iron jaw like Marciano could take a bare handed bengquan in similar fashion to as he takes a gloved right cross.

In the old days of bareknuckle fighting, people weren't knocked out by 1 punch all the time. The fights sometimes lasted for hours. And back then, boxers used vertical fists, kicks, throws that are eerily similar to judo and hit with whole body power. They also had professions like butcher and bricklayer which made them very strong.

And one more thing, when most people get hit on the street they don't clench their teeth. Thus they see stars when their brain get smacked around inside their skull from a head shot. When they are wearing gloves when sparring, they are also wearing a mouth guard which reminds them to clench their teeth and keep the brain from slamming around. So remember to clench your teeth when fighting for real!

I didn't know that about boxing gloves, but I always figured trying to make your punches felt through padding would considerably increase your punching strength over time.

I'm interested in the old-time bare-knuckle matches. Any good recommendations on reading?

Kenneth - check out this report of Figg V Sutton.

http://www.iainabernethy.com/articles/article_6.htm

Montgomery,

Can you tell something about Jake LaMotta? How would he compare to Rocky Marciano?

I saw stars with a mouthpiece. The guy had considerable reach on me and blasted me in the face. Luckily we were in the ring wearing 16 oz. gloves. I saw stars for a split second, like little white ones floating in my field of vision, my entire head ringing, and everything seemed to stop (for me). At that moment, I didn't know it, but my nose was severely broke; there was no blood and I was not knocked out. To make a long story short, the old adrenaline kicked in. I backed that mother into a corner, closing in on him, and fought my fight. I got short arms, what can you do?

FYI: I've never seen anyone bengquan anyone to the head. LOL!!!