We all know the jab is the boxer’s most foundational weapon. It does almost everything, and everything it doesn’t do it helps to set up.
But if we had to pick which punch really embodies what it means to box, I might select the humble left hook instead. Boxing (including the boxing we see in MMA) is a curious combination of scientific craft and brute, animal violence. At one end of the spectrum is the jab, flexible, nuanced, and relatively unlikely to put your lights out; at the other, we’d probably all agree, is the right hand, the favored (and indeed only) punch of barroom brawlers.