Shaun Murphy – Among the intelligentsia IQ has become the bastion of the good; hell, if you score above 120 you’re seen as a higher specimen of humanity and inherently better. If you think I’m wrong check it out; from the far-right to the leaders of the world. For many: your IQ score is more important than what you can actually do.
However, being somewhat, the least intelligent in a family of sickenly clever people I went into sport. Nevertheless, I am a voracious reader and I decided to search for the Philosopher’s stone: what genius really is. Of course, I was interested in the sporting applications…I read books on IQ and I was told a genius was an individual that scored over 140 on a test.. Then I thought of my PH.D uncle – obviously very high in his IQ – and, how well he deliveries his pizzas…My investigation went further and I discovered something real, completely tangible and applicable to real life. Howard Gardner’s model of multiple intelligences.
Let me explain, according to Gardner, you can be really good at maths, but terrible at sport. If you’re at the top of game at any endeavour, by Howard Gardner’s definition, you’re a ‘’genius’’ and therefore if your IQ score says you ain’t well, the test is rather silly. I agree.
Please stay with me, I’ll get to me the point. Muhammad Ali showed world-class genius in every stage of his career: intrapersonal genius [his ability to motivate himself]; interpersonal genius [his ability to communicate and socialize]; physical genius [do I need to explain]; and of course, mathematical genius. Ali’s genius in strategy and tactics – to me, is mathematical. However, ‘’The Greatest’’ scored very low on an IQ test. Again, please don’t leave, as I’m going to try and explain how calling any world champion an idiot is as oxymoronic as ‘’Good serial killer.’’
James J Corbett and Daniel Mendoza: The Genesis of Boxing Genius
During the brutal bare-knuckle era; at the start, the biggest, strongest, most genetically endowed brute won a contest of pure savagery. If you were big, strong and fearless, you didn’t need to learn much to beat your genetic inferiors, as the skill level was very low. Fortunately, there were exceptions, like an inventive young Jew called Daniel Mendoza who became the pioneer of intelligent fighting in the 1700’s.
According to legend, Mendoza invented many of the moves modern-day fighters use today and was the embodiment of pugilistic brilliance. ‘’The Spanish Jew’’ beat many men far bigger than himself; including his arch-rival Richard Humphries who outweighed him by forty pounds. Called the ‘’Father of Scientific Boxing,’’ Mendoza demonstrated the artist possibilities of the noble art, and showed how athletic genius can catapult people from obscurity.
Daniel Mendoza was a great example of making fighting an art, but after his success pugilism went back to a mean-and-nasty dark age. Later, though, the world’s greatest sport became more ‘civilized’’ when a huge, barrel-chested tough guy called John L Sullivan became boxing’s first gloved champion. Tough, merciless and very violent, the Irish-American wasn’t in anyway a connoisseur of the finer points of fighting. Although Sullivan was a hard hitter; the ‘’Big John L’’ possessed a crude style but no one could negate his strength to defeat him. However, in the shadows lurked John L. Sullivan’s nightmare: a man who wasn’t scared of his brute force because he didn’t need to be…
James J. Corbett, like Muhammad Ali, was a boxing genius. Given the moniker ‘’Gentleman Jim,’’ the California-Irishman fuelled his aristocratic image by an educated persona, a bombastic dress sense, and his previous employ in a bank. In reality, Corbett was a rather violent man but he was smart. James J. Corbett beat Joe Choynski, who KO’d Jack Johnson, and invented the left hook against ‘’The California Terror,’’ by chance, through throwing his punch in an arc to prevent damage to his top knuckles. To stake his claim for Sullivan’s title, Corbett drew with the avoided Peter Jackson and the public called for him to fight for the title [note: Peter Jackson, sadly, was never given a title shot due to his African origin!]
Nevertheless, racial politics wasn’t Corbett’s concern, and after sparring John L. Sullivan in an exhibition he knew he could beat him. From that sparring session, Corbett had worked out to beat the pugnacious John L. Sullivan you needed two things.
Speed and mobility. And with empire building persistence, ‘’Gentleman Jim’’ managed to coax Sullivan into the ring. To the amazement of America, ‘’The Boston Strong Boy’’ was knocked out after 21 brutal rounds. James J. Corbett used supreme mathematical strategy and sheik; to tear apart his fellow Irish-American in a measured display of brains over brawn…
Here comes the science bit
Anyone with half a brain must agree: Muhammad Ali was a genius and his mental abilities were more important than his physicality. All world champions are masters of boxing’s mental side, but Ali’s capability to unlock the most guarded vulnerabilities of the mind-and-body were unparalleled. From frightening the steel hearted Sonny Liston through exposing Liston’s fear of mad people; to his dazzling display of pugilistic poetry against Cleveland Williams, Ali was great. However, against George Foreman, ‘’The Greatest’’ became the poster boy for the apex of athletic performance. From the rope-a-dope to Ali’s scientific understanding of time-and-distance, Foreman was dismantled with military precision. When Foreman’s head hit the canvas in the eighth round, it was the result of the new champion’s huge wealth of boxing knowledge. But how did he get it? And how does it accumulate? Next, I’m going to describe the origin of the boxing genius!
Although, to me, most of the stuff in sport science’s books is plane rubbish; fortunately, some of these books that propagate rocket science to normal people have redeeming features. For instance, the better ones espouse the natural law of chunking. Basically, this means, the information you absorb needs to be linked together into solidified concepts. Like the telephone number, in Britain its eleven separate numbers but everyone remembers their numbers whole: chunked. Likewise, in boxing, you need your knowledge to be understood as a whole otherwise you’d be useless in the ring. James J Corbett once famously said: ‘’in boxing there are only twenty different punches, but it depends on how you mix them up to how good you are!’’ Obviously, in the ring, you can’t tell what’s going to happen, but the more information your brain has absorbed on the different strategies you can utilise against the problems you face, the more difficult you are to fight. With the likes of Ali and James J Corbett, their brains are full of solutions to the scenarios they’d face in the ring. At elite level, it’s intelligence that wins big fights: this intelligence is understanding how to react effectively to every situation quickly. As Floyd Mayweather decreed when interviewed: ‘’I win from here, Mayweather said, pointing to his head, ‘’I beat them thinking quick.’’ The reason I wrote this article is simple; a lot of people, especially fans, think they’re intellectually superior to the pugilistic elite. They are wrong, although most champs aren’t book smart, you’ve got to be very clever to be a world champion, and people don’t respect that.