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Jack McCarthy’s “Chin Hook” Clinch by Mark Hatmaker


This lesson is not from a champ.


Nor is the “Chin-Hook” an actual punch per se.


Let’s set the stage.


Heavyweight champion, Max Baer, wasn’t champ for very long. His fun loving, playboy habits often got in the way of diligent training and his propensity for clowning showmanship, on occasion, cost him ground in the midst of tough battles.


What was never in question was Bear’s punching power, particularly that right hand. The Ring magazine rates him #22 in the 100 Greatest Punchers of All-Time, and he had the unfortunate specter of two ring deaths tagged to his name.


Max had power even if he didn’t always use it.


This lesson comes from an early Baer match in which he lost [on a DQ.]


So why do we do we include it here?


His opponent in the bout in question was Jack McCarthy, a bit of a journeyman fighter, but undeniably tough. Mr. McCarthy had a method of controlling the clinch and delivering punishment that has been used by many fighters but an observation from boxing journalist Jack Kofoed writing in 1934 allows us particular insight into how this clinch control was achieved.


Kofoed writes, “Jack had a trick of getting in close, and laying his chin on the other fellow’s shoulder and hammering away at the body with wild abandon.”


This Chin-Hook Clinch, in essence, froze an opponent for a brief moment and allowed McCarthy to get off a few ripping shots to the body that the chin-hooked opponent had to “absorb” more than usual due to the freezing-hooking aspect of the ploy. 


The tactic served McCarthy well in his career, but Baer loved this sort of stockyard brawl and got in on the act, until the referee disqualified Baer for a blow that drifted mighty south.


Four Rounds to the Chin-Hook Clinch


This one simply has to have a training partner to work well as bags don’t have a correlating shoulder shelf to chin-hook onto.


Round One-Have your Feeder don a body-protector and pads. For the first round simply work a few punches from the outside, say a Jab-Cross to Lead Hook and respond to a Fed Jab by rocking away and following inside to a clinch. Strive for the chin-hook. Lock the chin and hook downward as if to freeze the opponent flat-footed. Fire no body shots yet, simply work following inside and getting the chin-hook.


Round Two-Repeat the above, but once you follow inside, apply two quick body-hooks post-chin-hook then wheel out of the clinch.


Round Three-Repeat the getting inside aspect of Round One, but here fire two uppercuts to the body then wheel out.


Round Four—Freeform. Work getting inside and to the chin-hook clinch. Once there, freeform your hammering to the body, wheel out and repeat.


In a Pinch Solo Training


Although not a perfect correlate, I find the following useful for when you simply want to work this tactic and partners happen to be scarce.


·        Tie a standard bedsheet or bath-towel around your heavy bag at shoulder height.


·        Bang from the outside as prescribed in Round One, then move in for a head-drive clinch and slide off to your ear being on the bag and…


·        Hooking your chin over the tied sheet. 


·        You will not be able to apply much downward pressure, but the sheet can act as enough of a tactical mnemonic to get work the preceding drills.


Keep in mind, the chin-hook clinch is not for the long haul, that is, extended sessions inside the clinch. But for quick weighting of your opponent and rapid shots to the body it has more than enough to recommend it.




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