Q: How do I beat a taller boxer and overcome his height and reach advantage? – Liam
A: You should beat a tall boxer the same way you would beat a short boxer – by outboxing him.
You overcome his height and reach by fighting inside his punching range where your punches can reach him. His height & reach won’t be an advantage if you’re on the inside.
I’ll address 3 tips when fighting tall boxers:
1) Getting inside without taking punishment.
Notice how I underlined “without taking punishment”. There are too many new guys to boxing that think the tall boxer’s weakness is you running straight in and forcing a brawl on the inside. In fact, this is hardly the case. They already expected you would do this. Taller boxers know you can’t reach them, they’ve been practicing all sorts of counter-punches to keep you from getting inside! So if you just try running straight in against a taller boxer, you’ll probably get hit pretty hard; and probably at a range where you can’t return fire.
The easiest way to come inside is by slipping his jab and using feints. You can’t just walk into him, you have to wait until he throws a jab and then move past the jab. Don’t waste your time trying to slip and duck the jab. All that body movement wastes energy and it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to move your body faster than he moves his arm. What you want to do is pull your head down or to the side slightly and then focus on moving STRAIGHT into him with a counter punch of your own.
You can also get inside by chasing down his punches. Usually, taller guys have a slow recovery. Wait for him to throw a jab and then immediately counter. If you throw a right hand right after he jabs, your right hand will get to his face before his jab hand can recover to defend.
Of course, a lot of tall guys are more defensive and will wait all day to counter you from far away. To get them to throw, you should fake a lot of jabs and then counter them immediately after they try and block your jab or throw their own counter. Use lots of fakes. Hand fakes, head fakes, foot fakes, everything. It’ll tire them out to have to keep re-adjusting their body.
2) Overcoming his height and reach advantage by using your own advantages.
If you have better handspeed, use it. When he throws two punches, you throw five. If he’s got longer arms, he’s going to tire out and not be able to throw as many punches as you do. Long lanky arms usually means the arm will get more tired when throw punches. It’s not common for long guys to be volume punchers so you can probably outpunch them with sheer volume. But what IF he’s throwing more punches? (Paul Williams)… well to that, I say he’s probably not throwing very hard punches…which takes us to my next tip.
3) Throw harder punches.
A taller guy of equal weight with you probably has less muscle on his body and therefore less power. Since he’s using his height, you should probably use your muscle and start throwing harder punches. Aim them everywhere! My coach use to tell me to aim at the mid-section for tall guys. His reasoning was always, “When you cut down a tree, you don’t start at the top.” The same applies for boxing. Want to take down a tall guy? Aim at his abs and soon enough he should crumble.
FULL GUIDE TO FIGHTING TALLER BOXERS – HERE
Give it a try and let me know what worked best for you. Those tall guys give me problems too. Good luck with those tall guys!
Great
Great advice thank you. The best resource I’ve found online for boxing
it’s great advice and all but doesn’t he make up for his lack of muscle in leverage ?
Not always. Just because someone has longer limbs doesn’t automatically mean he has better leverage. Sometimes his bones are not genetically built for leverage, or his technique is poor, or he uses a style that doesn’t make use of his leverage. Or maybe the short guy has better genetic/technical/stylistic leverage. There are many possible scenarios.
What about if the tall fighter can dance? And perform the Ali shuffle? Hahaha! I’m joking about the Ali shuffle, only one heavyweight boxer can do that- Muhammad Ali.
WHAT IF THE TALL FIGHTER CAN DANCE?
best online boxing resource
Thank you, Chad! More great articles to come. See you around the site.
so if im street fighting should i still go for the abs on a taller person or straight for the head bc u know in street fights matches be over in a sec and im sure i wont have time to tire a person abs section or what should i do?
Hitting the solar plexus is a great way to KO someone. If nothing else, it will make them drop their hands for you to hit the jaw.
no just land big rite on chin
Got any video samples or any matches showing a short vs tall?(Besides Tyson of course haha)
Corrales vs Castillo or Ali Funeka vs Nate Campbell. Mosley vs De La Hoya 1. Hagler vs Hearns. Cotto vs Margarito 2. There are many.
satisfied
thanks man this will be very helpful to my fighting strategy appreciate it.:-)
Great article!
Thank you for this!! Everything you write makes sense but am having a heck of a time thinking of these things and putting them into practice when Im actually sparring and get into a repetitive rut of throwing only jabs and not moving my head (and the result is getting hit over and over in the face).:sad:
thanks, CV
I finally finished writing a full guide on this 2 days ago and will release it soon.
taller smaller
Guys I’m 5 10 and basically I’m like a wippet , my head movement is too much for taller guys I’ve boxed , work the core , uppercuts and hooks , ther felling like a tree ha ha , as above , big body puncher look @ hatton back in the day
nice analytic article,
please read the article i’ve wrote on wikihow.com,’ how to beat a taller and bigger opponent in a streetfight.”
“Use lots of fakes. Hand fakes, head fakes, foot fakes, everything. It’ll tire them out to have to keep re-adjusting their body.” can you please give a quick very brief example?
Pretend that you’re gonna move something but then do something else. For example, I can pretend like I’m gonna jab to the face but instead I step away while he’s trying to counter.
Good advice! I will use it in my future spar. Thanks
What do i look for when i box someone with a longer reach
Quite simply, you’re looking for a chance to hit him.
Good day great boxers,i love boxing very much to the extent that i dont use wapon when figthing anybody. Now i want to develop my boxing ability in the sense that i we be undefeated ,please kindly help me out. Tanks to u all. [email protected]
thanks for the tips Johnny
well, for taller guys, jabbing them in the nose in a an upwards direction works as throwing uppercuts there, both of which hurt….
aim for the nose and punch upwards