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60/40 front.
I think with their height advantage, you've gotta close the distance somehow. You can either go peekaboo/dempsey roll to weave in there, or become a counter puncher. as a short guy, you'll want to learn how to weave under that jab - if you can weave under it to the outside, you can really make him pay with that body hook. When i was a little younger and faster and practiced it all the time, that was one of my money punches.
lately i'm trying to figure out some more advanced parrying. As I get older, I'm not going to be able to use head movement as effectively - plus a lot of guys like to drop elbows on your head if you weave under their punches ("oops, my bad" yeah right).
Parrying doesn't look as pretty and you can become susceptible to feints; especially if you over-parry and get too far out of position. but it's the type of "crafty defense" that stays with you longer than head movement or super-fast footwork. Jack Johnson's the easiest example I can point to - not a whole lot of movement or wasted energy, defense that stayed with him till the later years.
As a short guy, there's a rising parry you can do that'll work for the jab and the cross, but it'll take some practice. For the cross, it'll open up the right side of his body (your left); but it's tough coz it engages your left arm. In order to take advantage of it, you're going to have to learn to punch off the parry or learn how to fire hard with your other hand basically at the same time. For the jab: you'd slide in with a cross underneath, with a cross: slide in with a lead uppercut. It kinda looks ugly, but it was more popular in old school boxing - looks kinda like a kung fu move.
Ultimately you'll want a trainer to work with you and teach you your trade. I've had a few good ones over the years, but I've also had quite a few that called the same 3 combos on the mitts round after round, year after year. Trainers with in depth understanding of the craft are sometimes hard to find; but if you do they're worth their weight in gold. Look James Toney and how he was able to use angles to hang with people twice his size. Other notables include Bernard Hopkins and Archie Moore.
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