ATG Fighters who learnt there trade in sparring?

Thats the best way to learn. Sparring with better fighters will make you improve if you have the ability. Boxing has to become second nature. You learn that by repetition and sparring. You fine tune it in the pro ranks when you cant make as many mistakes. Sparring with pros who know how to find openings is a big part of it.

 

I will never forget my first experience in the ring. I trained in a gym with a professional fighter for three months. The head of the gym told me he would let me know when I was ready to get in the ring and spar. He said when I enter the ring to spar I must complete three rounds of sparring and there was no quitting before the final bell.
Of course I got a little tired of training and insisted I was ready to go. I could do 8 rounds of gym work consistently working on the bell easy so three rounds of sparring would be nothing. When I entered the ring it was against a Puerto Rican kid who had a few fights under his belt. Needless to say I took nine minutes of a complete beatdown. After the first round I was completely out of breathe. The intensity of getting hit and boxing and moving was like no experience I had during training in the gym. Of course later down the line I learned how to relax more and accept punches, but I learned really quick that there was a huge difference between training and actually boxing. Then theres a big difference between a real fight and sparring in the gym.
Futch like many other great trainers wasnt a great pro. Understanding the game and able to actually do it are two different things. Freddie Roach was also trained by Futch as a fighter and also as a trainer. He wasnt the greatest fighter either, but decent.

 

It's funny how often that's the case, across other sports too like football and so on.

 

Dwight Muhammad Qawi

 

Oh, ThinBlack is Cotto20?

:hi: Ready to get decimated again?

 

James Jeffries Improved almost entirely from Sparring with Corbett and later sparring with fitzsimmons.

 

Don't hate on thinblack, he's a legend for quality bumps. Most fighters learn the most through sparring or the amateurs

 

Lou Ambers was Tony Canzoneri's sparring partner.

 

Another guy that fits this criteria is Erdei. The guy gets like zero respect and just goes out and wins. But he does have 1 trait lots of the coulda woulda shoulda guys never seem to have; how to win fights. For some reason I've never understood, most folks will put far more emphasis on a guy's left hook than the ability to fight smart and how to win your fights.

 

Sparring & fighting...has to be Joey Giardello. the man had no amateur fights...hated to train..didn't train many times, but he had so many fights, and I bet sparring was an important part of whatever time he spent in training camp.

 

The strategic aspect of a fighters dossier..even more than his natural gifts intrigue the hell out of me.

 

Not an ATG but McCall must have learnt a lot as the top sparring partner for Tyson in the late 80s.