SO, if Subaru and Yuma were going to fight, I have headcanons about their fighting styles. (Let’s ignore that they probably wouldn’t be in the same weight class.)
So Yuma, DEFINITELY a brawler. These are your people like John L. Sullivan or Jack Dempsey. Brawlers are known for their strength and endurance. They can hit hard and take as good as they give. They’re the kinda guys who’ll walk into a punch just so they can get close enough to punch back. They’re durable is what I’m getting at.
Subaru, on the other hand, would be a stylist. I think if he was in his proper weight class he’d probs be a brawler too, but against Yuma this strategy just wouldn’t work. Yuma’s got four inches on him, so that means he has longer arms. Subaru couldn’t get close enough to throw the really hard punches. So he has to improvise. Stylists are your men like “Gentleman” Jim Corbett or Muhammad Ali, your “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” guys. What they lack in utter power they make up for in blocking and dodging ability. They dance around the ring looking for openings to strike. Precision hitters. Flexible.
Now if they were going to fight, one style isn’t objectively better than the other. It’d be a toss up that’d depend on a variety of factors. I think the biggest one would be if Yuma could adapt to Subaru’s style.
Historically, brawler types have had some difficulty with stylists, especially in older matches. You’ve gotta understand, boxing was a MAN’S sport, even more so than other sports, so it was really, really encouraged/appreciated by audiences when men could just take a beating and keep on going. Like, there are literally instances where men ended up drowning in their own blood due to injuries sustained from fighting and dropping dead in the ring, because they just REFUSED to give up. (Keep in mind this was like 19th century boxing, not modern, much more heavily regulated for safety boxing.) Boxing could also be used as a tool to prove one’s masculinity to a wider audience. One of the major reasons Jewish men took to boxing was because they were so often stereotyped as being weak. And of course, a core tenant of masculinity, is being able to take pain and keep going. Due to these and other factors, the brawling style was the most popular for a very long time. Some critics didn’t even think the stylist approach was real boxing.
Anyway, when you’ve been brawling your whole life and fighting other brawlers, sometimes it can be a little difficult to switch up your own fighting style to counteract a new opponent. When John L. Sullivan lost his 10 year long heavy weight championship, it was to “Gentleman” Jim Corbett, a stylist boxer who wore a pompadour! Do you have any idea of how ‘effeminate’ a hairstyle a pompadour was in 1892? It was a similar case for Jack Dempsey when he lost to Gene Tunney, another brawler losing to a stylist. So with that in mind, my money’s probably on Subaru??? But tbh, I’m not very familiar with modern boxing techniques. I just know about the history.
However, do not be saddened Yuma fans! Even if Subaru might win the match, Yuma would probably win the glory. Again, because of boxing’s relationship to masculinity, brawlers were just historically more popular and beloved than stylists. I mean, John L. Sullivan was America’s first national sports hero, not just in boxing, but in any sport. Literal poems were written about him like he was some mythic, Olympian demigod. Everyone loved him, even after his defeat, because he just perfectly encapsulated what Americans at that time wanted in a sports hero.
Sullivan was the son of Irish immigrants who pulled himself up his own bootstraps, through merit and grit, to become the heavy weight champion of the world. He regularly hung out with his fans in bars and never separated himself from the people he came from, unlike what modern sports celebrities do. Heck, he had a cross-country promotion tour where any Joe-Schmo could challenge him, and if they lasted three rounds they won money. It’s such a, for lack of a better term, American thing to do. And their love for him continued even after his defeat.
In a scene that I swear came straight out of a movie, after he lost the match Sullivan went to the side of the ring and raised his hand. The crowd fell silent. And he uttered the famous words,“Gentlemen, gentlemen, I have nothing at all to say. All I have to say is that I came into the ring once too often – and if I had to get licked I’m glad I was licked by an American. [Boxing at this time had very nationalist connotations of strength relating to world power.] I remain your warm and personal friend, John L. Sullivan.”
And Jack Dempsey uttered the even more famous,“Honey, I forgot to duck,” line after his own defeat. Which was so famous Ronald Reagan echoed the words to his own wife after surviving an assassination attempt, and these words endeared Dempsey to the public like you wouldn’t believe!!! Very effective!!!
After Dempsey’s defeat the public continued to follow him through his ultimately unsuccessful comeback as he re-challenged the champion that he had lost the heavy weight title to. And in his post-boxing career, he opened up a restaurant in NYC where people could just come in and have a chat with a former champion. Again, like Sullivan, and probs like Yuma would do, he never separated himself from the common man. So for brawlers, even in defeat, their sheer masculinity, cult of personality, and humility make them very endearing to the public.
On the other hand, Yuma might still have a chance at victory against Subaru if he can get some harsh punches in strategic locations. For Subaru, he’d probably want to aim for Yuma’s torso. A lot of people underestimate just how effective a gut punch is. But for Yuma, he’d want to aim straight for the head, particularly the eyes for the forehead. If he can open up a wound on Subaru and have the blood leak down into the eyes, it’ll cause a severe disadvantage for his opponent.
Eyesight is important in all sports, but it’s literally a strategy in boxing to attack the eyes. Either by punching them enough to get them to swell or having blood seep into them from a wound. If you wanna go really, really old school when boxing matches were held outside and the styles were really primitive, it was a strategy to get your opponent to face the sun so that he couldn’t see as well. So I think it’d be in Yuma’s best interest to aim for the eyes. That or he can just knock Subaru out.
So anyway, that’s my two cents on the Yuma vs Subaru match. Thanks for reading along and/or sorry for cluttering your dash with boxing history.
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