Weighing In: Reach

April 3, 2009

By Jason Thompson

"Some boxers like to fight outside and use their reach to their advantage." 

This sentence makes perfect sense to me as a life-long boxing fan but the more time I have spent talking about Fight Night Round 4 and its new very realistic mechanics and how "reach" will be a factor, the more I am realizing that the concept of "reach" is not a term everyone understands.  So here is how I describe "reach" to some of my friends.

Consider that boxers come in all shapes and sizes and one of the differences is the length of fighter's arms measured from arm-pit to fist - the longer the arms the longer the "reach".  Theoretically, a fighter with longer reach should be able to punch his opponent without getting touched.  Typically, a fighter with longer reach will box from a distance or "outside" rather than up-close to his opponent or "inside" because, by fighting on the outside he can reach his opponent and stay untouched.  These fighters are typically described as "boxers" because they "box" or jab and throw combinations from range while moving around the ring keeping the shorter armed opponent at a distance.  Shorter armed boxers, or boxers with shorter "reach", usually counter this technique by cutting off the ring, trapping the longer armed opponent and getting "inside" so that their shorter arms can reach their opponent.

To see what "reach" does visually, check out the Muhammad Ali photos from Brian Hayes' blog titled "Fight Night Round 4 - The Heavyweights".  In the first two shots you can see how Ali uses his reach with both a straight right and a jab punching his opponent while clearly beyond the reach of his opponent.  If you have ever watched Lennox Lewis fight, you know that he was a master at out-boxing his opponents from a distance and punishing anyone who dared try and step inside of his jab.

Is a reach advantage an overwhelming advantage?  Not as much as you might think.  Boxers that rely on their reach advantage have to be agile, very accurate with their punches, and they have to be in excellent condition because it takes a lot of punches to keep an opponent at a distance.  If a boxer wants to get inside his opponent's reach advantage he usually only has to slip one punch and step forward.  Once inside the power of the shorter armed boxer can take over.  Consider that Tyson probably never had a reach advantage on any of his opponents.