Crisp Fundamental Boxing with Cissokho

The Olympics are a place where the best athletes from every country around the world come to compete to choose absolute champions. In some sports the Olympics is the end all be all, for sports like wrestling and swimming the Olympics replace that year's World Championship. 

When it comes to boxing the Olympics is a precursor for most fighters before they can go pro. Many medalists go on to win the title. Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Lennox Lewis are all Gold Medalists and all for a time they were dominant heavyweight champions. 

The great Oscar De La Hoya won gold in 1992. After that his career had him win 10 titles in 6 different weight classes. His accomplishments will live forever and the history books will remember him as one of the greatest pound for pound pugilist of all time. 

Just because you don't win gold does not mean you are not destined for greatness. In Fact in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympic games a young boxer by the name of Floyd Mayweather Jr from Detroit Michigan made history by being the first American to be a Cuban boxer in competition ever.  

That night Floyd did not stand as the Olympic Champion, he had taken 3rd place. Bronze. He would take that bronze and literally turn it into gold as he goes on to have a professional record of 50-0 and be the biggest draw in boxing history. 

Floyd had to start somewhere and bronze at the 1996 Olympics was his start. 20 years later another young boxer has shown to have a similar start.

Souleymane Cissokho, a French boxer, has earned himself a Bronze medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016. This is not the only thing he has in common with Money Mayweather. 

Since going pro in early 2017 Souleymane has been perfect in his showings. He has a record of 11-0 with no signs of stopping anytime soon.  In those 11 fights he has won 7 by knockout. 

The backbone of Cissokho’s boxing is his footwork and technical precision and command of positions. 

When he moves it is quick and decisive, forward strike, angle off repeat. His defensive maneuvers are also quite sharp. 

Most of Cissokho’s fights have happened in his home country of France, but he has fought in the mecca of boxing. Madison Square Garden. They say the garden has something special when you are fighting there due to its rich history.

On that night Souleymane Cissokho did not disappoint. Facing a strong and experienced Argentinian Boxer Jose Carlos Paz, the two squared off under the lights in mid July. 

Jose much like Cissokho mostly fought in his home country, but was a much more experienced fighter. Sporting a 23-9-1 record against Cissokho’s 9-0. 

Trouble started early for Jose as Cissokho started in on him with that technically perfect jab. Constantly applying pressure. As time wore on so did Cissokho. His ability to apply constant pressure and mix attacks from head to body was too much for Jose Paz to handle and he crumbled in the 10th round. 

There are few people who have the technical skills that Souleymane has. Go look at any of his 11 pro fights. It is always the same story, he wears opponents down with technical boxing and when they start getting lazy and tired he hits them with the big shots. 

His foot work is perfectly timed and exact in execution. 

What is great is Souleymane has put together an instructional on how to build the exact skills he has. The only thing left for the coach or the student is to put in the hundreds of thousands of repetitions needed to create perfection.

What is covered is not something most Boxing Instructionals give. Warming up and Shadowboxing. These are two of the most fundamental parts of a boxing workout and yet who has ever put out instructions on how to do it with purpose? No one that I have seen. 

After that is out of the way, Cissokho gets into the nitty gritty of training. Pad work on the four basic strikes, Jab, Cross, Uppercut, and Hook. Then he shows how to put all of this together into combos on the pads and how to sprinkle in defensive measures. 

Overall the 11-0 Pro, 2016 Bronze medalist has a great deal to be shared when it comes to fundamentals. It is these building blocks that will help create boxing mastery but without a solid foundation whatever is built upon it will be easily shook. 

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