Carlos Monzon – Skills

THE SKILLS OF CARLOS MONZON; MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPION 1970-1977

Remarkably, Carlos Monzon (97-3) wasn’t a fighter with tremendous athleticism. He wasn’t overwhelmingly fast, light on his feet or the most naturally explosive. Yet through efficient technique and a huge variety of weapons to select in his arsenal, he was able to dominate the middleweight division with menace and force. Let’s take a close look:

Jab

                The catalyst of almost all of Monzon’s offence was the jab. His jab carved out openings, whilst acting as a fortress between him and his opponent’s offence. Carlos’ jab kept his opponent’s in the middle to long range, where the tall Monzon had the advantage. After establishing a stiff, punishing jab, opponent’s were overly reactive to his lead hand. This allowed Monzon to control his opponent’s with feints and flicking jabs, which required little physical investment on Monzon’s part.

Carlos Monzon had a lethal lead

Setting up the right

Monzon’s jab was the perfect set-up for his menacing right, and he had a variety of ways to utilise it. His double jab disrupts his opponent’s momentum by forcing their weight on the back foot, where he unable to counterpunch or defend quickly, allowing Monzon a free punch.

The blinding jab was in some ways harmless, in that there was no aim to actually hurt the opponent. However, blinding your opponent causes a massive sense of urgency and worry, due to the fact that their most reliable sense that dictates their defence is taken away. Logically, fending off the blinding jab should be done with minimal effort and low physical investment. However, the sense of urgency caused his opponent to divert too much attention to avoiding the jab, leaving the gates open for a vicious right hand to land.

Right Crosses

                The speed of the right hand, usually caught his opponent’s off guard. He would stick out his jab slowly, and then suddenly up the tempo by coming through with a right hand as quick as thunder. This caught his opponent’s off guard, and increased the effectiveness of the punches.

Again adding to his variety, Monzon adopted a somewhat unorthodox right hand. Monzon would often throw right hands in the form of a cross, but land it to the side of his opponent’s head, almost towards the back of the head. Outside angle right hands were perfect as counters to the jab, as the opponent would usually lift their shoulder whilst jabbing to protect their chin. But this just helped to conceal Monzon’s incoming right even more effectively.

Carlos’ height enabled him to throw punches to the head relatively easy, standing tall to see openings better, and whipping punches around the sides. Hitting at a time where most opponents were smothered,  and felt although there opponent was experiencing the same  issue, meant that unexpected pounds to the side of their head could be very distressing. In the first fight with Benvenuti, you could see Nino’s stress as he repeatedly looked over to the ref for assistance, and pushed Monzon’s head several times as if to say: ‘come on, show some sportsmanship!’.

Carlos Monzon’s variety put many opponent’s down

Uppercut

Monzon’s height was responsible for adding an unorthodox nature to his trademark uppercut to the body. The trajectory of Monzon’s uppercut was the same as a commonly throw straight punch, whereas conventional uppercuts travel in much more of an upwards angle. Monzon, always willing to take advantage of every opening presented to him, he would counter his opponent’s jab with the uppercut. This was especially effective as the jab exposes the lower left side, and the uppercut catches the opponent whilst he is moving forward into the punch. In addition to this, when Monzon ducked underneath the jab and threw the uppercu to the body, the was extremely difficult to see coming.

A tendency of his opponent’s, was to dip and bend forward at the waist. This often meant they would move their head directly into uppercuts, even when it seemed that Monzon was actually aiming for the body. To further provoke his opponent into bending into the uppercut,  Monzon would jab at his opponent’s to cause them to bend. This made the impact of the punch even more vicious.

A lead uppercut also was an effective counter to an incoming opponent who throws wide punches. Whilst opening up, Monzon would sneak in an uppercut on the same side as his opponent’s hook. He would then turn and roll his torso so that the hook would sail behind his back.

Monzon could fight well on the back foot

Squat and punch

A bit unusual for a fighter who is as tall as he was, Monzon liked to launch punches from a crouching position. Making the punch more difficult to track, he would squat down before punching at times, particular with left hooks and uppercuts. This was most evident in his fight with Nino Benvenuti.

Backwards Fighting

Typically, his opponent’s would have to swarm forward to get to Monzon. Carlos’ remedy to this was to lean backwards, allowing the punch to miss him by inches, and giving him a better view of his opponent. Fighting whilst using backwards movement, with his opponent moving forward allowed him to catch his opponents without them seeing the punches coming. It also allowed him to counter his opponent’s forward momentum, which increased the impact of the punch.

Counters

Generally, Monzon’s counters were impressively accurate and pragmatic. Monzon’s variety meant that any opening a fighter left while throwing a particular shot, he would adjust and counter punch the opening left to him. He had a counter for every single situation that could have been presented to him. Opponent wants to jab? Monzon would throw a right counter to the body, or head, or throw a left hook/ uppercut as they twist into it. Opponent wants to bend at the waist? It’s more than likely that they would be bending right into a low uppercut. Monzon’s ability to instinctively react to the present moment, and pick out the best available option was truly sublime.

Monzon was adaptable. If the situation required him to back up, he would do so. And he was pretty good at countering off of the back foot. Many times, he would counter from his backwards lean by coming back with a  hard right.

Negating offence

Fighting Monzon was messy business. Opponent’s rarely, if ever, strung together meaningful periods of success against Monzon. Carlos would smother, roll, bend, twist, clinch, and use any of trick up his sleeve to negate a mounting offence from his opponent. This limited opponents to singular shots, preventing them from building up momentum against him. It truly is a rare find, if you happen to see Monzon allowing opponent’s to have long periods of successful punching against him.

Carlos Monzon was a fearsome fighter

Final Note

Despite being rated as one of the greatest, if not the best, middleweights in boxing history, in my opinion Monzon still doesn’t receive as much attention as he should. Most likely due to his lack of flashiness and an eye-catching style, his efficiency and amazing variety is often overlooked by many who miss the subtleties. But Monzon’s pragmatic approach, and ability to impose himself on his opponent was what fired him to 14 title defences.