Customer Reviews

Championship Fighting: Explosive Punching and Aggressive Defense

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To put it shortly, this is the simply best book you can buy if you want to learn to punch or think you need to improve your punch. At the time I write this, you can download a text version on the internet. Go to google and type in:

"championship fighting" stickgrappler

Obviously, no book can teach someone how to box -like they say, books can't punch back. That said, I think someone who was conciously trying to make sure their movement's were within Dempsey's guidelines as they practiced, and was rereading, referring back to this book over and over the whole time, could make a good puncher out of himself in a few months using Dempsey's book. Whatever punch you're throwing, Dempsey teaches you in a clear, detailed, systematic way, how to shift your weight so that your knuckles have the total force of your body behind them.

Dempsey was notorious for his vicious fighting style and brutal punching power (like Tyson, except that Dempsey was smart enough to confine his aggression to the ring ). This book shows the fusion between the two in his technique; how the one depended on the other. The short step he takes(the "trigger step"), to get the weight behind his straight punches, results in a pressing, advancing style. Dempsey's temperment was well suited to his method. Something he says that made me smile; discussing the disadvantages of a crouching stance, he writes, "your weight is too far forward to permit fast retreating footwork -if you want to retreat. "

If you are just starting and can't join a boxing gym, then buy an empty, $10-$20 canvas punching bag off of ebay that can hold 70 pounds. Don't buy the cheapstuff for your hands, get wraps and bag gloves from title or ringside. Be carefull with your hands to start with - they're not hard to mess up.

In this book, Dempsey proves himself to be one of the most intelligent boxers the ring has seen. His knowledge of the physics behind a punch is impeccable, and his book is based around using these elements to your advantage. The best example is bodyweight, and Dempsey describes in the opening chapters how a baby dropped from a 10 story building onto a person's head can easily kill a grown man. You've got 20 times a baby's size - imagine what you can do!

The rest of the book details how to throw pure punches, with body weight in motion behind each to ensure maximium damage. He knows quite a bit about preventing punches from losing their power by keeping skeletal structure optimal, and throughly discusses this in the chapters about the power line.

In addition, this book isn't just about boxing. It is written with fist fighting in mind, where K.O.s are much more prevalent. In these situations, being a "fancy Dan" is begging for a knockout. Each second you're fighting exposes you to more danger, and so ending the fight via power punching is the best exit. And boy does he show you how to do it.

A side note - the basics of a punch where the fist lands vertically isn't known by many modern fighters. This punch predominated in bareknuckle boxing because it allows for a cleaner strike with more of the fist, whereas horizontal punches tend to connect in smaller areas and increase the likelyhood of breaking a knuckle. When you consider the pinky is most skeletally reinforced part of the fist, a fact Dempsey explains in the book, this is even more dangerous (he teaches you to aim with the ring to prevent pinky breakage while still allowing for high power). He doesn't mention this protective benefit of vertical punching, but he clearly knows how to throw them. Then again, this may be due to the fact gloves were around 6 ounces in his day, so they're not quite as protective as they are now. Horizontal punching is somewhat an artifact of the sport, and since Dempsey grew up fighting people in bars, you get to see an entirely new vertical punch most people won't expect. He calls it a straight jolt, and it's like running into someone with your fist. It's faster than my jabs but with serious stunning power.

This book is great for anyone who wants to learn how to punch in a fistfight, as well as a boxing ring. The vertical punch and Dempsey's falling step were both admired by Bruce Lee and incorporated heavily into his Jeet Kun Do system. A cursory look at this book and that martial art easily shows that Lee's ideas about counter-punching were heavily modeled after Dempsey, as with his basics of throwing a punch. And for good reason - if you spend a week on the heavy bag trying Dempsey's advice, you'll notice remarkable gains in power. After a year, you'll be vicious.

He also goes over training and conditioning, including sparring, and the proper way to watch a boxing match. He says he wrote 384 pages for the book then trimmed down the worthless info to the essentials behind strong punches. In addition to having good advice, it's a pleasure to read. The book is well-written, interesting, and gives many insights into how Dempsey thought about boxing (and the popularity of it after his fight with Willard).

When I started taking boxing lessons, I had drilled from this book and studied fights for a year. Apparently this book helped me punch hard from the beginning. I managed to start with few corrections to my general punching form, and since those minor adjustments (the first lesson) I haven't had to spend additional time on basics. The second lesson we moved straight to advanced combinations (the first was more getting me used to the idea of fighting someone). It's very useful to start boxing knowing how to triple jab. And thanks to this book and long arms, I'm told I have good power in either hand.

When I first met my trainer for a lesson, he had me, a friend, and someone who had trained MMA for years jab him in the arm. I was told that I hit harder than the MMA fighter (I had 15 pounds on him but this was my first boxing lesson). I had been training on a heavybag and shadowboxing for about a year with this book and others as a reference, and am pretty athletic. So assuming you have some natural strength or athleticism, it is certainly possible to teach yourself fight using this book. However, timing, distance, accuracy, and defense are hard to learn on your own. But you can develop a head start; by practicing parries and glance-offs as described by Dempsey, I apparently started out tricky to hit (usually new people are punching bags).

Books that are excellent for complimenting this are "The Art of Boxing" by George Carpentier. It goes over snapping punches and more. Carpentier was friends with Dempsey after their heavyweight title match, which was one of the original superfights and million dollar gates (in the 1920s)! It's clear Dempsey organized his defensive chapter based on conversations with Carpentier, who uses the same categories for defense as Dempsey.

The best thing about these books are the little tricks they throw in that are valuable for advanced fighters. They casually mention weakpoints of certain builds, styles, and dirty shots you can use outside of the ring. Dempsey's book, Carpentier's book, Tunney's autobiography "A Man Must Fight," and other Dempsey biographies are chalk full of these references. Find all of them you can and study them - all three were amazing world champions (Carpentier fought in around 6 weight classes and Dempsey and Tunney speak for themselves).

That said, this book is my favorite. It's helped me appreciate a sport I'd neglected for years. Reading about Dempsey's life ("Flame of Pure Fire") and this book, it's clear he was a smart guy. He's so friendly you can't help liking him, yet in a boxing ring he was murderous. He walked 20 miles in the desert for a match when he was starting out. He's the real deal as a champion and a gentleman, and my only personal hero.

I've thought long & hard about what to say about this book,and finally decided anything I did say wouldn't do it justice.If your looking for the clearest explanation of explosive punching etc, look no further.

If you want to learn how to really punch, and if you can find a copy of the following book in either its original hardback version, or the reprinted paperback version, I strongly recommend that you purchase it and read it. However, be advised that it has been out-of-print for sometime and can be quite expensive if you are lucky enough to find one to purchase in the first place. Just exactly what book am I referring to, well it is the book called "Championship Fighting" by Jack Dempsey and it was originally published back in 1950. The edition I have is the 1983 paperback edition published by Centerline Press.

Jack Dempsey, as you may or may not know, was the heavyweight boxing champion of the world in the early 1900's. Being rather small for a heavyweight, Dempsey more than made up for it with the devastating power he had in his punches. Over numerous years both during his boxing career and after, Dempsey kept meticulous track of just exactly how to develop punching power not only through his own training and experience, but also through numerous others. What he discovered is contained within the pages of this book.

Now if you keep in mind that this book was originally written over 50 years ago, you will be even more amazed at how profound and relevant the information contained within is to our current day and age and with a little adjustment, is even relevant to perhaps any and all martial arts and combative systems in one form or another. That is perhaps the one single thing that stood out and impressed me the most about this book and its author, and that is the fact that the information provided was and is way ahead of its time and soundly based in fact and principle.

Dempsey starts out his book by giving you some background into his punching prowess and his reasoning behind writing this book and supplying you the reader with such a treasure of punching information. Dempsey teaches you all of the various components that you will need to learn and practice in order to improve your punching power and give you the ability to knock out your opponents. These various components include; the different types of punches, the correct stance, how to drop your body weight, proper body movement, etc.

Being a practicing martial artist for over 25 years, I saw a lot of relevant information in this book that could be applied to the martial arts with just a little bit of modification for the technique being used. Even though Dempsey is talking about punching, a lot of the principles he teaches can also be applied to kicking, throwing, grappling, etc.

Here is a list of the chapters that are included in this book.

1. Explosives at Toledo
2. Good and Bad Toledo Aftermaths
3. Punchers Are Made; Not Born
4. Why I Wrote This Book
5. Differences Between Fist-Fighting and Boxing
6. You're the Kayo Kid
7. What is a punch?
8. The Falling Step
9. The Power Line
10. Relaying and Exploding
11. Stance
12. Footwork
13. Range
14. Straight Punching from the Whirl
15. Purity in Punching
16. Hooking
17. Uppercuts
18. Punch Ranks First
19. Your Sparmate
20. General Defense and Blocking
21. Deflection
22. Evasion
23. Feinting and Drawing
24. Training
25. How to Watch a Fight

No matter what your own level of expertise or experience is, you will benefit from the information contained within this book. Do yourself a favor and locate a copy of this book and purchase it, and then read it from cover to cover numerous times and practice the information contained within after reading it and you will see a noticeable increase in your punching power. Don't take my word for it though, buy the book and see for yourself. You won't be disappointed!

Handed onto me by my dad, this classic is a worthy addition to the boxing library of any fan - superb training tips written in the days when men were men and pansies were flowers. Needs an urgent reprint.

As I already indicated in the title I (and many others I presume) would like to see that book on Amazon again since previous reviewers value it so high and I didn't have a chance to get my own copy yet. Is that too much to ask?
I wonder why books of such quality aren't on the "shelves" more often so that vultures like those 3 at used&new ($250 is overinflated to put it mildly-especially if you can get a new piece for roughly 10 times less) wouldn't get a chance to reap us off that easy?

This is the classic work and still one of the best on how to improve your punching. For me it occupies a similar place in sports history that Ted Williams's book on batting and hitting does, a book truly written by one of the greats in his field. It isn't just about punching, either, as it discusses the importance of stance and footwork and other factors on punching. Another writer here mentioned how Dempsey said he preferred a non-leaning stance; this is similar to the stance and strategy in the kali and escrima knife-fighting arts (which I teach), where this approach is preferred also. And in tai chi, which pays more attention to the fine details of balance than any other martial art, learning too far forward is normally avoided also. (I say normally because advanced students are allowed to take a front stance in which the knee extends further than the middle of the foot, which is usually avoided).

And last but not least, the late, great Bruce Lee's style of kung fu that he invented, Jeet Kune Do, has its footwork based primarily on western boxing and western fencing. Even today JKD's punches are still more boxing-like than Wing Chun-like, the style of kung fu that influenced Jeet Kune Do the most. (By the way, I have to mention that I am a certified instructor in Kali/JKD under Chuck Gonzaga, one of Ted Lucaylucay's senior instructors, and who himself was a student of Bruce Lee and Danny Inosanto. Chuck is a great martial artist himself who is skilled in several martial arts and also in the healing massage arts).

Dempsey has been described as the first modern boxer, one of the smartest fighters to ever grace the ring, and a true gentlemen. In fact, one time, as a 12-year old boy back in the early 60s, he once sent me postcard. My father had stopped for a drink at his bar, it might have been in Chicago, and got to talking with the champ, and happened to mention it was my birthday. So Dempsey sent me a card. :-) So I had to post a comment here about Dempsey's classic book and a man who was a great fighter and a true gentleman who went out of his way to send a kid he didn't even know a birthday card.

A terrific book with exceptional insights from one of the greatest champions of all time. His knowledge of the art of boxing is unmatched.

There is not a whole lot I can add to the many great comments from the other reviewers of this fantastic book. Jack Dempsey really understood the art of boxing and he used the scientific approach to analyze the principles behind power punching. Many of his opponents were larger than he was, but he was able to knock them out. This book is a collectors item because it is still one of the best books on boxing ever written by the late great Jack Dempsey. Like any type of physical skills book, you cannot learn how to box from only reading a book. This book in combination with instruction from a good boxing coach, will make you a better boxer.

Rating: 5 stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Monadnock Defensive Tactics System, MDTS)

This book is far superior. If you want a book on boxing, get one from someone who knows what he's talking about. Jack Dempsey's technique was so developed that Mike Tyson and other famous boxers took their cue from him. If you want to know how to deliver a powerful punch and prepare for excellent defense, Jack Dempsey will show you how. The other books on boxing, such as Ned Beaumont's, are written by guys who probably never got more involved in a real fight than eating popcorn in front of the television. If you're in shape, with no fat on your gut, and if you got the equipment, nothing should stop you from profiting from this book. Don't waste money on any other book.