Foreman, Jon - In My Arms Lyrics

If there's a part 2 it must have Trevor Berbick!!!

Evander Holyfield also used it sometimes a lil fresher footage availablr for that

Miguel cotto

The last one

Why does ken Norton's version look more like the Philly shell ?

Evander Holyfield was also big on the Cross Armed Style

i thought pancho vila guelledo invented cross arm guard

It looks like it's basically just a right elbow and forearm parry paired with a lead shoulder roll.

Rocky Marciano used it in his battle on the ropes with Moore after his right hands to deflect Moore's counter shots and to load his lefts.

He also used it regularly for a brief moment to get inside.

A lot of fighters seem to use their right arm briefly like that rather than as a primary guard.

No frazer?

Dustin porier uses this well, especially in his second fight against max

l use a cross guard when jabbing, only when fighting southpaws though so l can block his jab and still throw one myself

Interesting

well i learned something today

This song is incredible thanks

Cross guard works better in the heavier weights, it would not be of much if any use in light weight division

as a boxer that has a ambidextrous style it helps to be able to switch from standard, philly, cross and other variations like the mumy/thai stance.

Awsome thanks, Archie Moore best!

It isn't used anymore, simply because it isn't taught anymore.

Seriously people who bring up the lack of fighters using this as an argument for it's lack of effectiveness...
How many people today use straight up Catskill PeekABoo?
No one.
Who uses Ali's style? (Ali also used quite a bit of Cross armed to survive the power shots of some of his opponents, especially Earnie Shavers).

So, given that almost no one uses it today...
Is PKB ineffective? Hell no. A good PKB fighter is a terrifying opponent.
...and that is why you should learn cross armed.

In fact, Tyson as often said that the style of Foreman (who was trained by a Cross-arm master) would have been very difficult for him to handle.
Foreman used to spar with Sonny Liston. Liston had monstrous power. Foreman specifically perfected his cross arm in order to be able to survive Liston's barrages of power shots.
And that is where this style really shines. Against a combination power puncher, this is an extremely effective guard, especially if you can stay calm, weather the storm, and counter with accuracy. Hmmm... who uses a similar strategy today, TBE maybe?

Nikolaij Brouiller what’s pkb

@Joseph Ted It's the short version of Peekaboo.

Mixed with the Detroit shoulder roll it's almost impossible to get knocked out using this defense .. ..ASK JAMES TONEY!.....plz do Rubin Carter!

I see this often compared to the philly shell and I can see why. This defense is really practical if you know how to block. You can hold your hands diagonally or horizontal. You can basically block all hits to the head when you use it horizontally, only leaving the body open. If you use it diagonally, you can block most punches to the head and body leaving only one side of your head open and the opposite side of your body open, but if you train your reflexes well enough to raise your elbow to block that side of your face and lower your other elbow to block that side of the body, you may be able to develop an incredible defense similar to the slipping one can do in the philly shell.

Awesome video my man!

tres interressante cette video merci a toi

Beautiful. Every fighter/person should watch this. Arms already up, counters easy & devastating. 🥩

Who’s boxer using this defense in today’s boxing style

This is why I love foreman. He loved using those old, forgotten early boxing techniques

The music in these videos is really good.

Just finished watching MANDINGO.

awesome stuff. for the life of me I can't understand how it works...but these guys are great

Take notes from archie and ken norton they did it the best

Pretty much an older unpolished version of the philly shell

The footwork and offensive options are also different. They look similar doean't mean they're the same.

More offensive one may say and suits power punchers it seems.

Smoking joe frazier

What about him?

haNZAgod Man was great in using the cross armed defence.

never new such a block existed. don't see any current boxers using cross armed blocks

Cletus Seldin aka the "Hebrew Hammer" beat Roberto Ortiz bloody late last year while using this guard. He's the reason I looked into it. Seldin is a crude slugger though so he lost his most recent match by decision to Yvess Ulysse who is a pure boxer and didn't allow Seldin to touch him.

What I love about this guard is it blocks straight punches so if they compensate by swinging overhands or swinging wide, you hit them with short straights and jolt their head back. Conversely, go to the body, right? Its not protected. Or the uppercut? If you do this guard, train on the heavy bag, sparring, hitting the mitts to literally taunt your opponent to go to the body or the uppercut and SMACK! The hand that they've hit with and left a certain side of their head uncovered, make them pay. As with any style, it takes perfecting and hours of practice. Its also easy to walk people down however, try to keep your eyes on the target and not hidden behind your hands. Love this style!

When people go for the body the counter follows. So, it's not as open as it seems.

Great work on this video brother.
Ive used the cross armed defense since i was a kid, most people see it and dont understand what im doing, but i can honestly say uts never failed me in a boxing match

These rare videos show the defensive strengths of the Cross Armed guard, and reveal that is is so practical and effective even against the best fighters in history. When combined with rolling and parrying, I find it to be a smarter stronger style. But, the real advantages are MUCH more obvious when you learn how to use this style WITHOUT GLOVES for MMA and self defense. I suspect the technique's real origin is bare knuckle and close range fighting. Once you take off the gloves, you can't hide behind your fists like modern fighters do. Large padded gloves work great in the ring, but for MMA and self defense, standard guards leave too many gaps. Long live the Cross Armed Guard, or as it used to be known, The Safety Block.

Anderson Dilva vs Isreal Adesanya. Silva used the bee swatting crosses arm my thai range finding technique you ste trying to find it. It is with Silva. Only man in UFC to utilize all those guess Mcgregor called it bee swatting technique beautiful.

@Tanner Steele Yoel Romero used it as well... And brian ortega goes into it for brief moments...

Ramin Guy Sweet I'll see if I can find some of that somewhere! Thank u brotha

@Ramin Guy Yoel does a beautiful job with this, I found this out from boxing after trying to find a decent guard that I could easily transition into forearm blocks and hooks, parries, kick "wipes" and defend against big overhands and straight punches, but in MMA, where you don't have those gloves. Saw big man Yoel do this, looked great, esp. against Luke Rockhold. I think he hurt Luke bad even against kicks, by feeding him elbows with his guard Super underestimated.

i think crossed arm and shoulder rolling altogether is almost a complete protection

Awesome video!
👊😎

Old School

when you are doing cross armed defense what hand goes on top if you are an orthodox fighter.

Isaac West right top, left bottom. Similar to the philly shell

TheRandomwizard actually its whatever your comfortable with. I switch it up to give me max option in countering. Keeps opponent off guard and hesitant too.

i love cross-armed, I do not understand how it is not the most used style. Logically I think it's the best defense

Love the cross arm defence

You forgot Tim Witherspoon.

David Cole He doesn't put every single fighter who uses it in the video only a select few so no he didn't forget him.

love the jazz mix as well

now i know lol i use this never knew. thanks

Your oldschool Videos are brilliant sometimes i only look out for your videos from the oldtime because you are the best one to put video material and music together that it fit for everybody not like the other dudes with techno beats on old sugar Robinson videos that fucked up the whole material

difficult to pull off well but can be very effective that cross guard

Great video! Archie Moore is my favorite; very intelligent, great defense and great knockout power. And notice how much longevity and good health some of these fighters had, using this great defensive style; George and Archie had the two longest successful boxing careers in history, before Bernard Hopkins. George Forman doesn't even seem like he's boxed before, and Archie Moore was very articulate, and a dynamic orator and speaker well into his 70s and 80s. Boxing is a science, violent, but a violent science none the less; learn to fight, and you'll save your brain and be able to enjoy this wonderful sport for a long time. Thank you for this video!

love defense highlights

I would count the Philly Shell as most similar to this, as it goes. Philly shell seems based on this and then tweaked like right hand positioned at the side of the head, and more side on stance. But basically I find them very similar.
This one seems more similar to a high guard approach, based on trying to use it to advance forward on the opponent, pressure fight, and cut the ring off. The Philly Shell seems to employ different tactics based around a different mindset.
Mind you, I say Philly Shell, I'm a bit old fashioned. To me the Philly Shell is just a cross arm block basically but just a slight variation of it. The more side-on stance enables counter punching better, I would have thought. But it's not as easy to launch an offense from.
Best shell user ever was actually in a way, James Toney in his prime, to me anyway. . Absolutely old school. Mayweather would be a close second IMHO. Not meaning to take anything away from Mayweather, of course.
Best cross armed block-ist was Norton, for my tastes.

whats the music

I made this nearly a year ago, I don't remember.

Mononome - Every End Is A New Beginning

Archie mixed his cross arm defence with a lot of bobbing and weaving setting himself up for counters.

Bro,..z nobody is even in the same galaxy as you when it comes to these boxing vids,..thank you for taking the time to make such excellent work ..I enjoy them all thoroughly

Glad you enjoy the content bud.

Very nice.

I know this video already includes him, but what about a defensive highlight video solely for Moore?

I just made a new video of him only about 2 weeks ago so not re-watching his fights for a while.

Joe frazier should be on this

Rajni Kanth smoking Joe people don't give him a lot of credit people say Tyson would ko him in 1 round. People should watch all of his fights. Joe was hard to hit and get better in the later rounds,and when he got knocked down he got up .

Mike Mike joe was a notoriously slow starter and everyone knows how fast a starter Tyson was so I definitely would not be surprised if smokin joe went down and out in one

@Shaun Fyfe i will still side with Joe cause he had heart that Mike could only imagine.

First Last I disagree and think that it is a misconception that mike had no heart when he took tremendous beatings and never looked for a way out against people like Douglas, holyfield and Lewis. Another think that people say is that mike never won a fight in which he got rocked/ hurt when he won the first Bruno fight, the bone crusher smith fight, mike lost the first 2/3 rounds against tucker, the James tillis fight was also very a competitive fight where mike nearly lost and before I forget about the heart thing mike tore his Achilles' tendon in the Danny Williams fight.
I say this all this but yes joe had a better heart than mike and joe would have fought until his last breath

Chisora should been included just because he does the cross armed defence lol not because hes a all time great....nice video btw bless

Man Molina tried this against Joshua
Didn't work so well for him

I have always wondered if this was an actual defensive guard or just in the Fight Night games. I have rarely seen it in action.

Joe Frazier does this too, when he bobs and weave and ducks and comes up with a left hook to counter.
It is also compatible with the Philly Shell guard, as the hand positions overlap in similar postures.

I used to try to philly shell because I was a big Roy Jones and James Toney fan and use that slickster style then I realized I was fat and white.  but I think someone who is more robust and shorter like myself can use the cross armed, mummy type defense with elements of the shell and the wing chun wing block (high elbow guard) it can be pretty effective.  Look at David Tua.

Excelent video. There are boxer of light weight who use these style of defense?

Luis Alfredo Rodríguez Valero I honestly hope so

Tim Witherspoon had a nice cross arm defence

Would this style of defense be practical for lower weight classes?

Good. I expected for it. Good look.

Noah R. de Luzuriaga duh

watch azumah nelson or marlon starling

Noah yes if your arm to body ratio is good.

I doubt it, this seems good against power shots but would be to slow for quick combos

Ahh. The crab defense. Not the most effective technique but a few fighters somewhat mastered it. Most notably Archie Moore and George Foreman during his comeback years.

Southern Storm frazier had the best version of it in my opinion

george foreman didn't master cross armed defense,he had iron chin and most of the shots landed on his face especially in late fights.He was master of offense though and cutting the ring.

Thank appreciate it!

I know this guy didn't have the best career but how about Chris Byrd his defensive skills were unique?

+charles allen Already got a Byrd defense highlight mate: https://youtu.be/JspU5RQvk4A - Here's my full defense playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfbjKz220EvtozS4IXh-1AJHZ6rsic77_

Great concept to cover for a video. Was very effective. I don't believe it is really used at all today. More shoulder roll used for the fighters nowadays ...

Chuck Finley It peeked my curiosity since Cotto's last fight using this technique.

Chuck Finley it’s not very effective as you can land the overhand left hook/right hook very easily. Especially doubling up as the shell defense obscures vision. Also, the uppercut is effective against it too. Archie Moore probably had the best shell defense as he changed stances when in close to avoid the looping blows.

@QuIgYx Archie Moore proved it's effectiveness.

Fear Monger even he was beaten by many fighters

Corkscrew power punches can easily penetrate the cross-armed defense. You need to be careful with this defense if you want to actually put it to use. It was more usable in the old times, notice that not much boxers nowadays use it because to use it you need to put more control(use your opened gloves to control your opponents head and other parts to manipulate to your advantages) and nowadays gloves, in comparison to the gloves of the old are more closed/tight(they are always closed as a fist, you can't really open your palm much, one of the reasons there aren't much inn-fighting today and why everyone prefer the middle to long range fights, the ones that do engage in an inn fight usually aren't too skilled to do otherwise and that's their only option to win against a superior middle and long range boxer to them) which makes it harder and more riskier to control your opponent. Floyd is one of the only ones who made it work(Floyd evolved boxing to the highest stage possible imo, skill-wise of course), It still is possible, but much harder than before. One more interesting fact about this stance you can notice yourselves, the boxers that use it usually are old/slow as fuck. I wouldn't advice to ever use it, especially if you are young and didn't use it to understand how it works properly.

Very little in your verbal assault makes sense. Yes, you need to be careful with this defence, but doesn't that also apply to the orthodox style? The reason there isn't "much in-fighting" today is everything to do with the erosion of skills in the art from the golden days of boxing to now. It is simply a neglected art, not some cast-off employed by brutes. I believe Ken Norton used this guard when he fought Muhammad Ali in 1973 and broke his jaw. The Greatest was reasonably quick(!) so in my humble opinion, it depends on the stylist, not the style. In the clip, you will see the switch from criss-cross to orthodox on the fly.

There was no "verbal assault" , it's just how you perceived it(weirdly so). Orthodox stance is orthodox because it's usable for 99% of the boxers. There are a lot of reasons why there isn't much inn-fighting today, the list is pretty long and me and you both mentioned only about 30% of the truth. Ali wasn't really quick, he never was quick after his 3 and a half year layoff, but I guess "reasonably quick" does the trick. "so in my humble opinion, it depends on the stylist, not the style." - that statement is absolutely correct. I personally love using that stance.

@Gagzor March Agreed. I am going to take issue with the idea that Ali "wasn't really quick". There was never a faster heavyweight of hand and foot - ever. Can you name one, bar Tyson 1985-88? He was still fast, post -layoff, until Manila.

Sick video, much enjoyed

Loving that instrumental! What is it??

+TVsez Mononome - Every End Is A New Beginning

this is the best video you have made by FAR, congrats man

What about boxers who parry punches actively like Juan Manuel Marquez

+2012DVSONE What about them mate? You want me to make a video on them? Possibly sometime in the future, got a few other ideas planned out for my defense highlights.

+haNZAgod there are some many was to defend in boxing each style has its pros and cons
I was hoping you would make a parrying defense video to me some of these boxers that keep the hands in front of them and parry is like batting down 100 mile and hour baseball pitches amazing stuff the only problem with parrying is when your opponent fakes and goes around with the same hand like floyed knocked down Marquez with he faked a jab Marquez went to parry and floyed turned into a short left hook.

To stop a parrying boxer advance with combos to the head and body, you throw one shot like broner or 1-2s you going get parried ans parried countered.
Got to THROW combos like a young Floyd, Erroll Spence Jr., Garry Russell amd a Canelo Alvarez. Fast and strong.

Frazier kind of used it too

+Suqqa bro Yea he did, he'll be featuring in one of my upcoming defense highlights (bobbing and weaving.)

Great defense highlight. Cross arm is pretty much an extinct style nowadays

+KillaBlu not if u crouch and slip ...i find im open to left hooks tho when I use it but it's a good guard to use

+Marco Cano what works for you man, I haven't seen many boxers use it really, the only ones I've seen use it not in this video are Cotto and Fraizer and even they rarely use it.

+KillaBlu i hardly use it only when I'm sure he can't hurt me or when I rush in

Philly Shell is a variation of cross-arm.

The most important part of cross-armed effectiveness is to have it as a dynamic guard.
You need to consciously intercept punches with your elbows and forearms.
If you are static in cross armed, it doesn't work as well.

In this guard, you are *counting on them* to aim for the openings, and this way you know what to expect. Yes the guard has holes. And knowing that, you should know where they are going to punch next.

The weakness of a tight guard is that your guard itself becomes a target. You turn into a sandbag. With power punchers, this can be a problem.
With cross armed, you can taunt them to hit in the holes, and make them pay for it. (and telegraphic power punchers risk punching an elbow).
Philly Shell evolved from this, and when you watch Mayweather you can see him do this all the time; he taunts the easy opening, expects it, and counters.

Awesome as always

Taking some more highlight requests if people have any. Will be working on videos of Larry Holmes and Danny Romero fairly soon.

haNZAgod I want to thank you for all your videos and postings. For the information on your headings too. They're all excellent! Thank you.

You put soo much work into these videos best highlights I've ever seen you should be the CEO or the one who calls format on ESPN every clip pivotal moment, punch, ko...The music jazzy hip hop very artsy like the mosaic of boxing highlights ...Even your meticulous summary of the videos this is quality stuff a real treat to watch , study, and analyse the greats ...Thanx I can watch this for hours

Max Baer used this guard too

Rubin Carter

Can you do any jabs?