The "cross guard" comes naturally when you fight for your life, like there's a sense of imminent death
The "open guard" or rather the orthodox stance as opposed to south paw, to put it simply, has more to do with "ritual" combat
Frame of reference https://pic8.co/sh/5GRxfM.png
Now you might say this is boxing not street fight and you're right
Dope
Natural dope, what the body releases during heavy stress... You have one that has his face turning all red and he's like "open stance" like "come and get me" and that's ritual combat, and you have the guy getting his face all white seeing this and taking the cross guard; one is fighting for his ego the other is here to survive... And to survive means whatever it takes...
You're not incorrect, but the question is which famous boxer used it. I took this to mean used it on a fairly regular basis. Sonny Liston used it exclusively (one of the biggest reasons he lost to Ali). Second career Foreman used it (Beat Moorer when he STOPPED using it). Frazier fell back on the cross guard when his head bobbing didnt work. Lennox Lewis was all over the place defensively, and cross guard was in his arsenal.
That's the question in the title... It's the content that is relevant here, the title is what it is, I usually don't change the title. When I might slightly disagree I quote it, when I find it a tad overblown for example
Ultimately, when it comes to cross guard ( and by cross guard I mean right leg forward, right arm at belt level as if you were holding a combat knife toward your "opponent", and left hand open at right cheek level) to me it's a literal "happenstance" when I get creative in the sense of prone to grappling. And then it reverts back to orthodox stance as in left leg becomes lead leg etc... And eventually repeat and rinse. I don't feel comfortable being cross guard with a lead left leg, at all. However cross guard with a right leg leading... Yeah, good stuff. But that's just me. It's a kind of a game hiding another just for the sake of doing what's "right" on a given opportunity/moment, it's not a matter of being this OR that, as far as I'm concerned while I have my habits, while I have been trained in a certain way like pretty much everybody else. But then, there are stuffs that come naturally that you never learned, it's mostly about how you're wired in the end, IMO
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