Totally Tae Kwon Do Magazine - Issue 20 - Usadojo

A Good Boxer Will Always Beat
My old instructor
my Jim Doyle has
told me on a couple
of occasions that
his father, who was
a boxer, had told
him that ‘a good
boxer will always
beat a good martial
artist’. I had always
assumed that this
was false. That was
until I met a guy
called Jack Dexter
at the old gym we
both worked at.
Jack is an amateur
boxer who could
quite easily be a
pro if that was truly
what he wanted.
His fight record is over 60
amateur fights with roughly
about half wins, what would
be considered to be a good
amateur record. Since he
was 14 he has trained at
the world famous Ingle gym
in Sheffield. This gym has
produced such talent as
Prince Naseem Hamed,
Herol ‘Bomber’ Graham,
Junior Witter and Jhonny
Nelson. The Ingle style is
sometimes classed as
awkward but the truth is
most fighters who come out
of their gym are just as
good orthodox as they are
southpaw. Jack Dexter is no
different. It is not until we
A Good Martial Artist
By David Sims, II
Jim Doyle, 2004
first started to spar
that I realised my
instructor’s father
was right. Jack has
hit me with shots to
the jaw that have
made me want to
cry. I mean literally
cry, my bottom lip
was going and
everything! He has
also hit me with
body shots that
have made my
heart feel like it is
going to stop, which
is no joke let me tell
you.
In TKD sparring I
have always been
taught to get in and out of
range and I found it really
difficult to switch from a
kicking range to a punching
range. As Taekwondoists
we often use evasiveness
and counter attacking and
let’s face it most of the time
we like to use kicks, which,
from my experience of
fighting kickboxing
competitions, are far
superior to most other arts.
Therefore we are maybe not
as used to standing in the
pocket and taking shots
compared to a boxer. Also
most of our sparring be it at
club or competition level are
done on mats and not in a
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