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In any type of full contact fighting, the knockout is what excites fighters and fans the most. One of the greatest knockout boxers in history was Rocky Marciano. The Ring magazine (September 1997) said of Marciano,,"Heenever 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 experience to fight him...Like Dempsey and Louis, he was able to get his whole body into a punch."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 experience to fight him...Like Dempsey and Louis, he was able to get his whole body into a punch."

In 1963, the U.S. Testing Company was asked to measure the power of Rocky's punch. It found that Marciano's knockout punch packed more explosive energy than an armor-piercing bullet and represented as much energy as would be required to spot lift 1000 pounds one foot off the ground. Always ready to take two or three punches to land one, Marciano beat down the guards of his opponents, and then, with the shortest arms in the history of the heavyweight division, he hammered them into submission.

Where Did This Power Come From? There is an axiom in boxing that says. "You can’t teach power. Either a fighter is born with it or not." Hundreds and hundreds of fighters have proven it to be true. However, in analyzing the punching of power hitters, some things are evident.

How a fighter sets himself when he delivers a blow affects power. A "boxer" like Mohamed Ali was on his toes, mobile, with little contact with the floor when he hits. The force of his impact comes only from his arms and shoulders. However, a "slugger" like Marciano plants his feet flat as he punches, using the floor for leverage to get more body weight behind the punch. Power is affected by a fighter's "commitment to the punch." A fighter who is thinking about a counterattack when he throws a punch is not committed to the punch. A fighter who accepts that he might get hit with a weak counterpunch and could care less, will put everything into a punch.

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