SHOULD MORE BOXERS TAKE A KNEE?

We often hear corners, fans and commentators say that a boxer who is stunned needs to hold on to save themselves from being stopped in a fight. Sometimes holding on works, sometimes it doesn’t and the boxer is either hurt more and knocked out clean or the referee jumps in and “saves them”. Look at Chris Jenkins' case last weekend, his efforts to duck and back away from Florian Marku were rendered useless by the Albanian’s forward marching onslaught, and Steve Gray decided enough was enough for the Welshman.

But there is another way around this tricky situation – take a knee.

To many the notion of taking a knee will be incomprehensible. After all, boxing is a very macho sport; you must never show that you’re hurt, even when you are. We’ve all see it - the boxer gets stopped by the ref and they look at them as if to say “what are you doing? I had him right where I wanted him!” So there is that argument to it, boxers will not take a knee because it shows that they’re hurt or that they’re not operating at their best.

But taking a knee could be a good tactic.

Think about the scenario: a boxer gets buzzed and isn’t critically hurt but is stunned. They stay up and start doing a bad version of the Time Warp to avoid the oncoming punishment – a jump to the left, a shake to the right. The boxer never really gets back to full focus because during this time he takes a few more shots and the ref jumps in and stops him. Seconds later the stopped boxer is fine and can’t believe what has happened. I’m sure Chris Jenkins knows this all too well, now.

Rerun that situation but where said boxer takes a knee instead:

The boxer gets buzzed and stumbles back but before his opponent can capitalise he takes a knee. He looks to his corner and reassures them that he’s ok. He gets up at the 8 count and tells the ref that he is fine. The ref wipes his gloves and he carries on with the round. Having given himself those 8 seconds, plus whatever other valuable parsecs he can rescue, to clear his head he has enough about him to evade any more damage and makes it to the end of the round. Between rounds he recovers completely, and he comes out firing on all cylinders in the next round.

Obviously there will be times that the boxer takes the knee but is still hurt afterwards and gets stopped, but for all those times that the boxer seems ok after he’s been stopped I’m sure they’d rather have taken the knee and still had a chance to win the fight than having been stopped before that chance and lost. Surely it’s worth taking the knee to give themselves that bit of a chance to make it through the round? I’m no boxer but I think it is.

Yes the boxer will be on the wrong end of a 10-8 round, but they’re still in the fight, it’s not over yet. They can still go on and win. Don’t believe me? See David Haye versus Jean Marc Mormeck below...