Anyone remember their first sparring session?

good stuff I got a couple of fights on VHS in a couple of different tournaments in the states in the late 80's and early 90's. I also boxed a kid from Ireland that box in ABA he said, in Florida still remember his name Alex O'Sullivan a ginger lad :rofl

 

i was 20, cocky, ex ball player, all around athlete... the gym had a rule that you could not spar untill you've trained for 3 months. So i lied and told the guy i had been training at other gyms and that i wanted to spar his best guy.

well he put me in with Lamar Russ, a pro now, then top 10 ranked amatuer in the nation. I didnt do anything because everytime i threw a punch he hit me with 3... and he was taking it easy on me.

i loved it. trained my ass and got much better.

 

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=514918&cat=boxer

Hey he aint doing too bad so nothing to be ashamed of mate

 

I was 14, he started to work the body and I kicked him in the knee (I was doing both kyokushin and boxing at the time) Few people on the side started bitching and I never spared at boxing again

 

It was about 1.5 years ago. He tried taking my head off and i was able to take over in the last 2 out of 3 rounds. He has it somewhere in youtube.

 

Good thread. I've read alot of the posts, and it's cool to see all the different ages.

I was 20 when I had my first real sparring session in the gym. It was in Lewiston Maine only two days after I hooked up with Joey Gamache. They told me I had potential, and wanted to know if I was interested in sparring their best 168lber as I was a southpaw and they were interested in getting him in with southpaws.

Haha I got whooped pretty good. I was in good shape, and could punch, just not boxing shape. I was winded after the first. I had my moments, but when you can remember every good shot you landed, you know you didn't land too many. It was cool though, it was an underground gym and everybody turned their attention whenever sparring was happening, and it made you feel like you were in front of a big crowd. Even though I didn't do great it wasn't about that, it was just about the love of boxing, and everyone held a common respect for each other no matter what the skill level, as long you tried.

I'll never forget it, that's for sure.

 

I remember trying to do my best muhammad ali impression just dancing around the ring...trying to punch going backwards ..flailing arm punches.....then i got tired and i got beaten up for it lol

 

I am a southpaw as well and I used to get a lot of invites at 16- 17 boxing 30 year old journeymen was tough when you don't have man strength yet. I started to box at 112 and reach 160 and everybody could see I could not keep the weight down since I reach 6"3 by 18 so that was the end of me.

 

i boxed golden gloves, made it to finals (regional) actually won it in many people's opinion; but was a great experience

 

last month actually. sparred the national 52 kg champ. he is my height ,one year older, but about 15 kg lighter. i was like, whatever i hope i don't hurt him too bad.
just sparred two minutes but ended up exhausted and whooped. quite humiliating. i'm going back next week.

 

Quality. I went over to Ireland to box once. The lad who I was boxing, we stayed in his coaches house because we couldn't get a hotel on such short notice. He took us on some mission of a walk on the day of the fight, about 3 hours, up and down hills, we quite easily walked around the whole island. His tactic was clearly to get us tired before we step in with his lads.

I beat the kid anyway, boxer of the night. They then came over to England for the weekend, I fought the same kid again...and again I beat him and got boxer of the night.

 

I was put in with a light heavyweight (im 64kg), I was a beginner and he had sparred before, but he was still pretty new.

I was waaaay too relaxed because I figured that he knew it was my first time sparring and would take it easy on me, thinking back I wasnt nervous at all for some reason, whereas ironically now I'll still get some tiny minor nerves before sparring.

Anyway we got in the ring and he just came out swinging, real sloppy like but because I was a newbie I didnt really know how to defend myself except for shelling up. As soon as he hit me I just shelled up and stopped moving, pretty much stood still lol, my mind just went blank basically. My coach kept shouting for me to move and get away but I was completely froze up just stood in front of this guy letting him beat on me.

Unfortunatly he had so much weight on me that shelling up didnt really do much at all and every punch that he threw would throw me about the ring like a ragdoll and at the end of the first round I was well and truly beaten up although Im glad to say I didnt go down, take a knee, or turn away from him.

While we were waiting for the second round my head kind of cleared and I suddenly realised the guy had just been pounding on me non stop for a whole two minutes, I got kind of pissed off because this guy was just being a bully and told myself to throw some hard punches back.

2nd and 3rd round were much better because he had completely gassed himself out trying to take me out in the first, he didnt land much and I managed to land a few nice right hands on him.

Still though it was a hell of an experience, after that sesh my nose was bleeding and my right eye was slightly swollen, although in the ring I had no idea my nose was bleeding until my coach told me at the end.

 

I wish, haha. Going on 35 years ago.

 

Yup .. against a smaller but more experienced guy, actually a lot stronger than me at the time.

3 rounds ... got my ass handed to me. The guy went a bit hard on me .. ended up with a bloody mouth, partial black eye, and almost dropped by a liver shot.

Obviously I was over matched and the other guy being more experienced should have gone easier on me.

But it was a humbling experience, and just made me wanna train harder and get back in

 

i was 18 and had been in the gym for a week. just before i went in my friend had taken me to the side and showed me how to throw an overhand right over his jab.

i just threw that shot all day long. the other kid never came back. because he never showed up i ended up sparring all the "experienced" fighters. i ended up leaving the gym daily with a black eye, fat lip, bloody nose, etc. it was months before i was able to leave the gym without much damage, lol.