What are your personal least favourite people to spar with? For me there are 2 types, first is the one who stops the round to lecture you about what you're doing wrong, that's much more common in Muay Thai than boxing. And secondly is the one who asks or strongly implies they want a nice easy light round and then changes their mind mid round when they're in an advantageous position and tries to take your head off.
The coaches at my gym don't allow anyone to spar without trainers in each corner. The trainers are the only ones that comment or halt action during sparring. Thankfully, I haven't had anyone who feels he has license to lecture me during a session. I have had some partners get overheated and turn things up. The trainers usually call that out, especially if one of the fighters has a match coming up. If they get chippy in places, my coach lets me know to not let the other guy get brave. Sort him out.
Most people say they're going to go easy but few really do. If sparring someone you don't know or someone from another gym, it's usually best to go hard early and then if he backs off then you know it's safe for you to go easier. Finding good sparring is tough. A fighter has to be good to be able to just work and not make a "fight" out of it. An occasional hard sparring session is all right, but only between evenly matched fighters and it has to be "occasional." Funny you mentioned MT fighters stopping sparring and giving advice. We had one in the gym recently and he sparred with a boxer in boxing. The boxer was going light, not trying to hurt him and was mostly working on his own defense. We were giving our guy advice and the MT started doing the same. The MT had little/no boxing skill but acted like he was seeing all the things our boxer was doing wrong and correcting them...Good sparring is hard to find!
I weigh around 115 kg if I started a round hard a lot of the little guys wouldnt last. A lot of MT gyms spar a lot but do so very lightly, there is a benefit to that imo, but not when they're calling time every few seconds to lecture you. I actually just thought of an even worse one, when they combine the 2. They go easy then ramp it up and when they get a bit back they start lecturing, reset and start again. Those people make me miss the old days when gym wars were the norm.
the worst are beginners who go hard.. one beginner asked me if we can go easy before round started, I said no problem.. The round started and he caught me few times with hard right cross on the chin, he was obviously very talented beginner. I started evading his punches and everytime he misses I saw that he wasn't taking it easy, you could see the swing and feel the wind when he misses. Then again, he caught me on the chin and my vision went green which i felt for the first time. Then I got angry and stopped with easy thing and started going through him, catching him with few of my crosses and uppercuts.. he started whining and left the ring before round ended, i was mad at him, we also had a verbal argument after that. really shitty.
Guys who go all out after saying lets take it easy are pretty annoying but for me its the charlie zelenoff guys. Literal crackhead homeless looking dudes, no offence to homeless people, flailing the wildest punches you ever saw while egging you on to throw back. I dont even know what to do with them, they look like they might literally break if you hit them too hard
Sometimes I admire their bravery, to ask unknown person for an easy sparring and then go hard, you don't know if that uknown guy will go to berserk mode and kill you in the end. Charlie was special coward who did that in weight gyms where there was no boxers, but I doubt he would do that in a boxing gym (or I am not enough educated about Zelenoff). I know he entered Mayweather gym and sucker punched Roger and I am sad they didn't kicked the **** out of him. And OK, he was brave enough to go to Wilder, that shows Charlie's instanity, but still I think he is ***** because all of previous "surprise encounters".
My story happened in the open gym over the weekend where there is no trainers. Boxers of all skills use to meet there and have a light sparrings. We can go like 15 rounds in that pace which comes great for working on technique, offensive and deffensive elements, movement and so on.. When I spar someone below my skills I always try to do 100% of my movement, defense or any other element which is not hard punching, so I don't hurt guy because I will need him next weekend also.. This guy was first time there, and maybe that was the problem. He saw me going fast lateral movements and he got intense and started to punch hard. I was thinking about that after I cooled down and apologized to the guy for using unappropriate language while arguing
If you are white with ali tatted on your back and el maldito tatted on your chest their is no sparring, only fights.
Back in the day, our club used to go to other clubs to work out every month or so, for variety. I remember the first time I was set to "spar" with some guy I didn't know my coach took me aside and told me to go all out. He said there is no such thing as "sparring" with guys from other clubs you don't know. I went in swinging and so did the other guy. It was a great "sparring" session.
That's the rule. If you are sparring someone from your gym you are trying to learn. If you spar someone from another gym, knock him out.
Lol that’s how I used to be. It’s common because it’s so new to them and most of them aren’t really gonna know how to stay cool or pull their punches during a session
