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- Strategy Lessons from Boxing: What Rocky Balboa and Mike Tyson Taught Me About Competition
Strategy Lessons from Boxing: What Rocky Balboa and Mike Tyson Taught Me About Competition
Former world heavy weight champion Mike Tyson.
What is strategy?
Strategy seems to be a word that is overly used - sometimes to create a sense of sophistication in planning exercises. The sport of boxing may reveal some peals of wisdom on the topic of strategy.
It’s become increasingly apparent to me that every opportunity poses a challenge and within every challenge there is embedded an opportunity. Opportunities and challenges are almost like the two sides of a coin – they come hand in hand.
Strategy is the realization and application of this truth in the context of games – games being defined as situations where different players interact and their outcomes depend on each other's choices.
Players in a game competing in any arena, whether it be the field of business or war, have inherent advantages and disadvantages.
The question of strategy revolves around how to exploit these advantages and disadvantages within that arena in order to defeat your competition.
Altered image of Rocky Balboa (portrayed by Sylvestre Stallone) fighting boxing legend Mike Tyson
A Strategy Lesson in Boxing from Rocky Balboa and Mike Tyson:
A few days ago I was on a plane 30,000+ feet above sea level watching Creed II, a movie that is a spin-off of the Rocky film franchise that started in the late 1970’s.
Adonis Creed, the protagonist, is faced with an opponent, Victor, who looks like he is half a foot taller and 30 lbs. heavier than he is. During their first fight, Adonis is badly beaten-up, but manages to win during their second altercation.
How?
Rocky Balboa, being the wise and experienced former fighter that he is, realizes that Adonis’ fighting style will not work against his current adversary. Adonis initially tried to compete using his typical fighting style of maintaining a safe distance and using brute force. This worked well when Adonis was competing with people of his size and build, which was no longer the case.
If you are competing using strength and height, the stronger and taller player will ultimately win.
Rocky made Adonis change his fighting style so that he would have to:
1) move closer to his opponent
2) move faster than his opponent
3) attack his opponent when his opponent’s guard was open, often after missed punches
This fighting strategy turned Victor’s advantages against him. His strength and weight meant that his punches were deadly – but only if he was able to strike his opponent. If his punches missed, he would leave parts of his head and body open to attack, especially by a smaller opponent who could maneuver around him more easily.
I believe Creed’s film writers took inspiration from boxing legend Mike Tyson and his popular Peek-a-Boo fighting style. Mike Tyson was one of the shortest heavyweight boxing champions in modern history – but holds the title for the youngest ever person to hold the championship title. Tyson argues that it is his height that gave him an edge over his competition.
“Most fighters are used to fighting opponents 6’3, 6’2 - the average heavyweight. I feel that I used that to my advantage because I move my head.
I’m very quick and I’m low to the ground, and its very difficult to hit me. I crouch low just to make my opponents punch down because I know where they’re going to punch at.
I get a lot of leverage from my punches. And it doesn’t matter if I punch up or straight or down or around – I have good leverage.
...I’m unique being one of the shortest heavyweights in history and having the second shortest reach in history and still I’m tremendously successful.”
Tyson’s used his height to his advantage by exploiting the disadvantages associated with his opponent’s size. His heights apparent disadvantage was turned into an advantage when coupled with the Peek-A-Boo fighting style. The more customary boxing style involves staying outside of your opponent's punching range and coupling that with occasional and aggressive opportunistic shots.
Peek-A-Boo practitioners are pressure fighters and counterpunchers who fight very aggressively, quickly and in close quarters. Fighters who practice this style of boxing naturally provoke their opponents into becoming more aggressive which encourages them to deviate from their natural fighting style, and which would lead them to make mistakes that creates openings that can be exploited.
“Its always good to throw a punch where you can hit him and he cant hit you”
Closing Remarks:
In any field of human interaction there will be participants that that seem superior for some reason or another.
These participants (be it people or companies) may dominate a field, whether it be a sport or industry; If you try to compete with those participants using the same methods that they have used to dominate that field, you will likely fail.
Strategic thinking involves understanding the field that you are competing in, and the qualities and characteristics of all participants involved, and aims to answer a simple question: How can I build upon and use my inherent qualities so that I can compete without facing my opponent using the same advantages as they are?