Give it a watch on YouTube, look at the comparison between him Mcgirt in Kovs corner. End of round 7, Tunde to Yarde ‘Empty the tank this round, I’m being serious, he’s done, i want you to go for it and empty the tank this round, everything you have’ Admittedly Yarde nearly had him out of there in round 8, but should a trainer be telling his fighter to ‘empty the tank’ knowing there is still 4 rounds left should he fail? Would he have looked a genius if he got the KO? I’m actually pro Tunde, but he should be a motivator/promoter.
That’s interesting I was watching the American broadcast and we never got to hear that. Tbf to Tunde he saw that Kovalev was struggling and that the last minute of the 7th was all Yarde. It was a gamble but one that nearly paid off. He probably knew deep down that Yarde only had a few rounds left anyway in his tank and it was impossible to win on points realistically. I can’t blame him for telling Yarde to go for it there.
It very nearly worked, Kovalev was absolutely all over the place and ready to go. With a little more precision he'd have pulled it off and Tunde would look like a genius and that clip would be played over and over on all different kinds of YouTube videos, it would be up there with Teddy Atlas and Povetkin. Shame.
Funniest part is when the ref came over to the corner and Tunde turned round and said " lions in the camp" I was pmsl. I bet the ref thought, "what the fk are u talking about" That corner work was a joke. Telling yarde after a couple of rds, that kov was ready to go. The whole fights corner work from tunde, it was a bit of a shambles.
In fairness, that advice nearly won Yarde a world title against a great champion in Russia in a fight he was losing widely. But it also led to a brutal KO loss. I think it's good advice if he pulls Yarde out after the 10th, which he obviously didn't. So it was excellent advice that was followed up with awful decision making by Tunde.
Just watching it now. He also said that Kovalev "has one more round at most then he's gone" at the end of round 3! So you really have to wonder whether his advice was random.
I remember he wasn’t even certain what round it was at one stage...checking with Yarde. Said something along the lines of...”what round are we, 10?”
I don wonder how much Tundes words in the 8th had on Yarde. Yeah he emptied the tank but was he going to do that anyway? Man was gassing from 5 onwards. He started walking Kov down the round before and going to the body which Tunde kinda of mentioned doing I just find him hard to take seriously
Don't really agree with you there. A trainer telling his fighter to keep punching and then that said fighter then blows out, is bad advice in my book. Whether he nearly got the k.o or not, he should of been setting up the power shots behind tapping shots that dont take energy out of you. He told him to keep throwing hard, that was not the correct advice. You should know your fighter, and tunde didn't know his fighter, because he'd kept him away from them situations. He was hoping yarde wasn't going to blow out,but if he'd of done things in the correct manner, he'd of known not to push yarde to the limits.
