Can a Hollywood boxer actually fight like a real-life one? Could the slap have been staged? The pros weigh in on Will Smith’s slap.
In one sense, Will Smith has spent a career preparing to slap Chris Rock across the face. In an industry that fetishizes masochism—Christian Bale’s subsisting on little more than two hundred calories’ worth of black coffee and apples for “The Machinist”; Robert De Niro’s arduous pasta regimen, which put sixty pounds on him for “Raging Bull”—Smith’s prep work stands out for its theatrical toughness. It could be said that he trains as if he were in a “Rocky” montage.
After Smith hit Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars, individual reactions spanned a spectrum of shock and blame. Some of the discourse focussed on the semiotics of a slap versus a punch. Also on how much weight you give the action-hero training. Can a Hollywood boxer actually fight like a real-life one? The pro-Smith, nothing-to-see-here crowd relied on a confidence that a Will Smith slap is physically harmless, if psychically devastating.
Freddie Roach, the renowned trainer of Mike Tyson and Manny Pacquiao, was consulted on technique. An asynchronous panel was convened.He got a good shot in. But the mechanics were terrible. He definitely telegraphed that punch.Two weeks in the gym, we’ll get him fixed. Definitely he would start off on the mirror, work on delivering the punch correctly. Then we’d go right to the mitts. I’d hold the mitts for him, and we’d make that shot a very meaningful shot.
Talk turned to a possible rematch. Both men agreed that the outcome hinged on unknown factors. Heart, canniness, un-sapped energy. Also: strategy. Farrell said, “My suggestion to Rock would be to keep his chin tucked in, move his head back, let the punch miss, let Smith move out of position, and just come back with a countershot.”
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