u/TheBlack_Swordsman

I saw a post earlier in the week about Kamogawa being the worst coach ever and not telling Ippo to use his jab more.

I believe that Kamogawa gets too much hate and Ippo is equally to blame. But I truly believe that neither is to blame for Ippo's retirement. Ippo lacked the ring IQ to keep up with higher ranked contenders and that is what lead to his downfall.

Kamogawa sealed the DR for a reason. He noticed Ippo losing sense of his boxing abilities. So he tried to have Ippo focus on his fundamentals and get him to throw 1-2 punches more and to start jabbing.

In the next set of scans, I want to point out that Ippo is not a natural genius like Takamura, Miyata and Volg. Nor does he have the natural instincts that Sendo has. He has always lacked the boxing IQ to be a technical fighter like Alfredo Gonzalez and Eiji Date. But he always made up for it with his stamina, endurance, durability and power. Here he tries to jab Take, but doesn't realize right away that Take switches stances. But again, Kamogawa was trying to get Ippo to jab more and Ippo definitely was trying.

People will always reference how technical Ippo was during his rookie kings. Well that's just it, he was fighting against rookies. But his experience and ring IQ was exposed more and more the higher he ranked up fighting better fighters. I don't think it's a inconsistency either that this happened. It mathematically makes sense that it happened.

Right now during the retirement arc, Ippo is getting what he needs. He is looking at boxing from a trainer's standpoint and this is growing his ring IQ. He's becoming a better strategist as well as a better defensive boxer from holding the mitts.