Jersey Joe Walcott -

Advanced Striking 2.0

Jersey Joe Walcott began boxing professionally in 1930, and finally won the world heavyweight title twenty-one years later. Walcott had some bad luck, some injuries, and some bad fights. He did not offer the sure-fire knockout of the young Joe Louis and so did not attract a financial backer until late in his professional career. It was the intervention of Felix Bocchicchio in the late 1940s that allowed Walcott to put down tools at the factory and focus on boxing full-time. While he was still a frustratingly hit-and-miss fighter, his skill was undeniable and eventually, on his fifth attempt, he became the oldest man to win the world heavyweight crown.

Fig. 1

Walcott’s life was inescapably connected to Louis’ it seemed. Walcott worked as a sparring partner for Louis, but was sacked for “getting cute” and knocking Louis down. Later, he challenged Louis for the world heavyweight title in Louis’ twenty-fifth defence of the crown. Walcott put on a masterclass and was robbed by the judges. A rematch saw Walcott seemingly widen the gap in boxing skill, as he danced around Louis inventing new moves on the fly, but he eventually got caught by the Brown Bomber along the ropes and stopped.

Walcott is remembered for his shuffling and dancing in the ring, and there are a couple of stories that cast him as an inspiration for the movement of a young Cassius Clay. When studying the art of Ali, Walcott or our last subject: Willie Pep, a large part of their magic is in when they choose to abandon their stance for mobility in the ring, and when they return to it in order to resume the fist-fight. 

Classical Side Steps and Cross Steps

While he would dance around the ring in a number of patterns, much of Walcott’s movement was performed from a side-on stance. This meant that he could perform a classical side step by stepping “forwards” with his right foot, or circle around the opponent to their right by stepping “backwards” with his right foot.

By staying side on to his opponent, Walcott could circle the ring by jogging backwards in the style that Muhammad Ali later came to rely on. One interesting trick that Walcott employed while doing this was to let his right hand float out towards the top rope whenever he came close to it. As Walcott fought in a simpler time, when thumbs were not attached to the palm of the glove, he could grab the rope and use it to forcibly change directions while circling the ring at great speed. 

The majority of Walcott’s offence was done with jabs and counter right hands, with the odd left hook snuck in there. He was not much of a combination puncher or a body hitter. All the extravagance and all the variety came in his distracting or even enticing use of his feet.

Walcott’s style was a love-letter to the classical side step. Rather than level his feet and side-skip, Walcott would turn his body towards the direction of the side step, and then step forwards around the opponent. The effect was that it often looked as if Walcott were out for an evening stroll and it just happened to be through a boxing ring.

All of this was exaggerated by Walcott’s swagger. He would sway his arms back and forward as he marched around the ring, flicking in backhands as it suited him. Walcott might stand in front of his opponent, bang his gloves together twice, pull up his shorts, L-step into a classical side step, and walk half a circle of the ring. He fought as if a vaudeville performer were assigned the role of “ancient prizefighter.” And that all of that might be to set something up, or just to kill some time. Walcott’s output was low, and his finishing rate was nothing impressive at heavyweight, but he was capable of slugging with the best fighters in the world, and if he walked them onto a punch at the right time he could level them outright.

Closely related to the classical side step is the cross step. The cross step is a questionable technique in boxing because, since the ban on the “pivot blow” at the beginning of the gloved era, there are few offensive options off it. For Walcott it served as a form of locomotion and an annoyance to draw the opponent forward for when he wanted to set his feet and slug it out.

Figure 2 shows a typical Walcott cross step. Jabbing at Louis, he springs back to his left in a V-step (c). Walcott’s left foot then leaves his stance and comes back behind his right (d). Now a southpaw, Walcott steps his right foot across himself top perform a cross step out to his left (f). Walcott would often back-hand southpaw jabs in from this position.

Fig. 2

Figure 3 shows a common follow up to this stance change and cross step. Walcott cross steps and proceeds to stroll around the ring with another cross step (a), (b), (c). As his opponent follows, Walcott rebounds off his left foot (d) to throw a southpaw left (e). This is very similar to Willie Pep’s “Pep Step.”

Fig. 3

Walcott’s sneakiest cross step was the one that he used to draw the great Joe Louis onto sucker punches. In every fight of Walcott’s that we have on film, he uses this little trick to tempt the opponent, but none ever fell for it like Louis. To Joe Louis, this cross step was a red rag before a bull, he could not help but attack in spite of getting knocked down twice off the same trick. 

In Figure 4, Walcott feints a jab (b), pulls back (c), and uses this weight transfer to bring his left foot with him crossing his feet (d). This cross step is not hidden in lateral movement around the ring, it is right in front of the opponent. Naturally the opponent steps in, but Walcott’s left foot—which is further back than his right foot was initially—now becomes his front foot again as his right foot slides back into a full stance. Walcott parries the jab (f), and returns with a one-two (g), (h).

Fig. 4

In both Louis fights, Walcott had to behave more outlandishly to draw Louis’ aggression as the rounds progressed. Ultimately this got him caught in the second fight, but it is still one of the most creative performances you will see in heavyweight history.

The Reverse Shoulder Roll

Often it was the distance from his opponent that allowed Walcott to perform his cross steps and invite danger, with a little bit of lead time on when his opponent could hit him. But comfort under fire was vital for Walcott to even attempt these cross steps because there was no guarantee his opponent could not catch up to him while he was out of position. Walcott’s reactions helped him enormously, and his shoulder roll, but the reverse shoulder roll opened up many options for him that simply do not exist for the average fighter.

Figure 5 shows an example of a reverse shoulder roll. Walcott jabs at his opponent (b), and changes levels to slip a return (c). When no counter comes, Walcott follows with a blasting right hand (d). Whether his fist bounces off his opponent’s lead shoulder, glove, or skull, Walcott is close enough to get hit on the counter (e). As the opponent’s right hand comes back, Walcott turns his shoulders all the way through and is tucked down behind his right shoulder (f).

Fig. 5

The regular shoulder roll is almost always performed with the body bladed on a line behind the lead shoulder. To roll down behind the rear shoulder effectively, the upper body has to be turned through—as if overcommitting to a right straight—even if the feet stay almost level. For this reason, Walcott often went to the reverse shoulder roll along the ropes and returned with wound up left hands. When Walcott used the reverse shoulder roll off his right hand, out in the open, he often continued to jog out the side door, with a cross step, as he is beginning to do in frame (g).

Stab-Step Left Hook

Walcott’s punching arsenal could be a little mundane compared to many of his peers. Yet one trick that he used to great success was a strange stab-step lead left hook.

Walcott’s most famous left hook was the counter he used to knock out Ezzard Charles and win the world heavyweight title in 1951. That shot turned Charles’ head all the way around and left him slumped on the deck. It was especially shocking because the bout had been so tepid up to that moment. There is a beautiful kind of symmetry in the way that Walcott won the belt with one perfect punch—against an opponent who had already beaten him twice—and the way that Rocky Marciano took the belt from Walcott with one perfect punch after losing twelve full rounds, a feat which would be impossible under modern rules.

But that perfect blow was delivered off the inside slip of the jab. It was a counter that Walcott often attempted and it gave him the means to truly load up the blow.

Walcott had a much trickier left hook in his arsenal. This one was delivered with minimal load-up. It was this punch that inflicted the first knockdown of Rocky Marciano’s career. Figure 6 shows that sequence. Having been broken from a clinch by the referee, Walcott began striding up to Marciano, right foot (a), left foot (b), right foot (c), and then stepped deep inside of Marciano’s lead foot as he established his stance (d).

Fig. 6

An extremely unusual aspect of this hook is that Walcott enters stepping heel-to-toe. That is, he stepped in on his heel and then rotated on it as his toes turned to face right and his whole stance followed. Heel-to-toe stepping is common in a walking gate but seldom seen as an athletic option. Movement in boxing is mostly done with the whole foot on the mat but the weight focused on the balls of the feet. When a fighter pivots on his foot to turn into a blow—such as a left hook—he turns on the ball of his foot as if “putting out a cigarette.” Walcott entered with his heel first, turned on it, and then got onto the ball of his foot, all while rotating his body into a completely side on position.

This deceptively detailed step-in left hook was at its best when hidden amid Walcott’s jiving and juking. Figure 7 shows an example from his second fight with Joe Louis. A commentator today might describe this as the fight in which Walcott was most “feeling himself” as he side stepped and cakewalked around Louis with reckless abandon.

Walcott and Louis are squared up just beyond jabbing range (a). Walcott simultaneously jumps his left foot back to level with his right, and steps out to his right side with his right foot in a classical side step variation called the L-step (b). Because he has withdrawn his whole body to the line of what was his rear foot, Walcott has extended the range and is safe until Louis steps forward. Often Walcott would return with a right hand from the L-step position in frame (b) but here he continues with a cross step through with his left foot (c). Walcott pivots around behind his left foot to re-establish stance (d) just as Louis is shuffling up to correct the distance. Walcott drops his left hand and takes a deep step towards Louis (e), pivoting on his lead foot as it lands and turning his whole body to the right with the left hook (f).

Fig. 7

When discussing Willie Pep, we examined his use of the Athletic side-step. He abandoned his stance to create more lateral mobility, in what was a complete break with boxing tradition. Jersey Joe Walcott used classical side steps and cross steps: techniques which had existed since the pre-gloved days of pugilism, and yet the frequency with which he used them, and the extended, dance-like sequences were a break with tradition in a completely different way.