Boxing coaches: What are the biggest things that Classic threads miss?

look at the fakes in boxing everywhere. this pretends to be expert persons only to manipulate young good fighter & get ego ' trips" & money job. it is exposed more also now with more internet. look at clowns in boxing coaches with no qualified! just fail as boxer & talk the ****. for money only. & steal fighter among each other, buy and sell & then fake interview on media social to pretend " new improved" ': fighter.

it is scandal if was any other sport.

 

boxing is few basics & hard work. & practice. this is same of much of life. beware of all person tell you something else. this is fake ' knowledge "" of ' confidence trick man

 

Boxing is filled w con men. Every coach I’ve ever met (not every but most*) thinks they’re boxing knowledge is superior to the other guys and they’re trash. Boxing is in a disarray and it’s a dying sport because it’s so disorganized and alienating.

 

yes & this why so many good boxers quit at professional. too many con man. trainers. manager & matchmaker. yes trainer coaches pretence they know superior & special knowledge to keep the con continues. but it is same basics everyone know. only thing good coach need is to show & supervise the practice same basics & help boxer focus on practice. to build strong mind boxer. unfortunate many trainer coach want weak mind boxer to confuse and not independent mind & want ego trip for them self like to be seen as the great "" mastermind '. I seen all kinds bull****

 

All the boxing coaches I knew when I was active in the sport were putting in a lot of hours without much return — in some cases zero return (working with amateurs and not a paid position — in fact many of them were funding trips, including me, for amateur competitions out of their own pockets). There were gym dues in some cases (in others not as maybe a local boys club or program provided the space) but it was mostly for rent and upkeep of equipment and such.

Today there’s a lot more of a ‘boxing fitness craze’ that allows coaches to charge a lot more for white-collar workout folks (especially ‘private lessons’ for those who want individual attention) and maybe afford to pay the rent on a gym and still make a little profit).

If you’re working with a pro fighter, you deserve to get paid. The idea that this should be charity work on the part of a coach (or manager) is a load of crap.

There are coaches of all levels of ability. Unless there’s a contract, a boxer is free to pick up and go where he or she chooses, but unless someone is in a major metropolitan area there’s probably not a lot of choices and you go to the local gym.

I’ll also give you a glimpse into the reality of the ‘other side’ of this — way more often than not, a coach invests years in a really good boxer taking them up the amateur ranks, teaching them, guiding them, often spending time away from their families and helping the fighter with all sorts of non-boxing issues that come up in life (including often loaning them money to get by) … and if they make it to a certain level some money person higher on the food chain swoops in and ‘steals’ the fighter to start their pro career — or if they have a little success early in their pro career then the money person takes them away before the person who invested those years makes any money back. Seems to me if a coach is good enough to get a fighter to the level that now someone is interested in them, that coach must have been doing a pretty good job.

I never knew a coach who i thought was exploitative. They are at all different levels, as are fighters. Sometimes the fighter isn’t good enough to ‘make it’ and become a contender or champion but can make some decent side money as an ‘opponent,’ and the managers of those fighters usually do a pretty good job of finding them money fights. I hear all the time people say this or that fighter was ‘mismanaged’ because they fought tough guys early in their careers — but the reality is (a) sometimes those are the only fights on offer, and if you aren’t hooked up with a promoter no promoter is offering your guy easy fights because he has no financial interest in helping their careers along, and (b) I assume people who say this never worked with a fighter who came up to them and said ‘get me a fight, any fight, I need to pay my rent/car payment and if I don’t then I lose my place to live or car.’ Now what should a manager there do? Hand him money out of the manager’s pocket to pay the fighter’s bills? The manager works for the fighter, and if the guy says get him a fight then you are serving his interests by doing what he asks.

 

yes amateur coach are most of time better. in professional game it is world of " con man '. I boxed when young man & seen it in many different country of world & see it again now also.

 

Because you’re too demanding. I demand that you stop being so demanding. I’ve met and raised you by 1 demand (bingo, now make it 2). Are you finally going to fold?

 

Legacy only matters to people that don't do the fighting. If you are a fighter and money isn't the most important objective, you have mental health issues. If your manager has anything, anything at all, in mind as he guides your career other than money, you are screwed.
It is a job. Unlike being a CPA or an attorney, you do not have a 45 year career, and you can and will get hurt just about every day. So you make as much as you can, and your manager should be doing everything that he can to minimize your risk.
Boxing fans don't really understand themselves. Very very few people understand anything that goes on in a boxing match- this is especially true of people that have sparred some or had a couple amateur fights. The number of people that appreciate actual skillfull boxing between 2 evenly matched opponents is minimal. Everybody wants to see somebody get their ass kicked- if not they are not entertained. Boxing people understand that, and they also know that, if your guy kicks the other guy's ass thoroughly and convincingly, then your guy doesn't need to get his ass kicked at all.
This is why most fights now are like big time wrestling matches, where the outcome is decided when the match is signed and the match only proceeds so that one guy can show all his moves against the other guy. And everybody is happy with that arrangement. Some grumble but you will daily read things on this board like "he was exposed" because he "lost rounds."
Another one is the whole concept of "prime." The whole was he "prime" or "pre prime" or "post prime" thing is just gibberish. "Everybody has a different prime", he is overrated because "he lost rounds during his prime" or was "knocked down during his prime." Then you get into "Fighter A was exposed because during his prime he lost 2 rounds to Fighter B before stopping him in 4, but Fighter C was pre prime and stopped Fighter B in 3 rounds."

 

Mea Culpa.

I take two hurried steps back in order to kneel and bow before you.

You are De Man(d).

One thing though, I’m not sure I see any smiles on those two angry little emoji heads.

Never mind, my bad, yet AGAIN.

Raise your IRE even more..…I must NOT. I retreat back to my swamp, ears flapping.

 

Gary Russell Sr. died a month or two ago, He had at least 4 sons who won national Golden Glove championships, one son who won a professional world title, two others who are still active and undefeated as pros. This was a quote he gave when being interviewed and was asked about matching his sons. “If my son gets hurt in the ring, not one of these commentators is going to be at the house to change this man’s Pamper,” Russell Sr. said. “A lot of people when they come to a fight, they want to see two guys beat the crap out of each other. They want someone, if they get their eye knocked out, to push it back in and keep fighting. The sport is brutal, but we have to treat it as a business.” https://andscape.com/features/the-fighting-gary-russells-approach-boxing-in-a-family-way/

Gary trained and managed his own sons and they fought hard for him because they knew they had somebody behind them who cared about them. We went to their place to spar occasionally and Gary Sr. was telling us about one of his sons buying a fast motorcycle. Gary Sr. locked it in a garage so his son couldn't ride it. They trained at night so they wouldn't go out where there might be problems. Gary Sr. knew it was all a business and all about making money while you can. He had his sons buying real estate and investing for their future. I hope his sons take care of each other now the way Gary Sr. took care of them.

 

for every fighter protected well managed and given 'minimize risk' fights it means there is all the opponents who are 'over match'
& often is the same persons protecting one and risking other
this is the business
to protect one they rely on no one looks out for the opponent. they rely on bad advised opponent, paid less to risk more
this is the business

it is not good

 

I’ll try this last one.

A manager and promoter (and in some cases at the top, a network or streaming service) have an investment in a fighter. He is their commodity.

Their job is to match him with what in the business are known as ‘opponents.’ He is the fighter (from their perspective), the other guy is the opponent.

So let’s say I sign to manage a kid coming out of the amateurs who won a couple of national titles and did well in the Olympic Trials but maybe didn’t make the Olympics, or maybe he turned pro in an ‘off year’ between Olympics. But he’s a prospect, a commodity.

My job is to find people to fight him (perhaps enlisting a matchmaker to do the grunt work of making calls). We have signed with a big-time promoter and they have a date for us for a 4- or 6-round fight in six weeks. We canvass the landscape for opponents who my guy should beat (in some cases, at least with smarter managers, we also want someone he can learn something from — maybe a guy who can take my guy a few rounds without probably winning many of them, or he’s a good boxer or he’s a southpaw … we mostly want to avoid those … or he’s a pressure fighter … whatever, but shows my guy a different look). The offer to fight my fighter, the contract, is sent maybe two weeks before the fight even though we’ve narrowed it to two or three guys a few weeks before that.

That outcome isn’t predetermined in that the opponent won’t try, but he’s probably overmatched and maybe he’s been in the gym but he probably hasn’t been getting the kind of sparring my guy has, etc. If my guy is one of those who reduce weight — walks around at 175, fights at 160, we’ve been working to get to that weight for a few weeks. The opponent probably walks around at 165 or else he wouldn’t be able to make weigh in two weeks after the contract, so we’re also the bigger, stronger guy.

Sometimes the Fighter (A-side, whatever you want to call it) on undercards makes less for that fight than the opponent (he’s on a contract that spells out what he gets paid per fight to a certain point in his career and the opponent’s manager can ask for good money because he knows his guy is not favored but is needed) but later on that works itself out.

As the Fighter’s career progresses, he’ll reach a point where he’s taking more risks in matchmaking because he’s got to step up to fight a contender at some point, but before that he’ll be fighting a couple of guys with ‘names’ — they were once something but they’re on the downside — who have more skill than the undercard opponents. But we’re carefully selecting who those are.

So it’s not fixed, not predetermined like a wrestling match where the promoter/booker says ‘Wrestler A wins, I want about 10 minutes and a really big splashy finish’ or ‘I want Wrestler B to cheat to win to get the crowd riled up at him.’ But the outcome is … predictable.

 

A big blind spot for me among the internet generation is the notion of the so called “style advantage” whereby the implication is a certain style always beats another style.

This is not to be confused with “styles make fights” which demonstrates something different like a clash of styles, where one guy became confused and could not overcome a technical difficulty an individual presented. It won’t mean another individual with the same plan beats him next time.

in truth, strategies exist against each styles. Game plans exist for each style to overcome all other styles. It’s a matter of implicating the right plan for the right guy within a style.

The advantage is with whomever neutralises the other rather than one type always beats another.

 

Been discussed many times across many threads, but one thing I’d point out here is:

A very close, very competitive fight can be scored 120-108 over 12 rounds (or 100-90 over 10). Every round can be razor close, but if the same guy edges every one of those rounds in the eyes of a judge than it’s a shutout and still a tooth-and-nail fight.

Judges score each round as a unit. They don’t say ‘well I gave the last close round to Fighter A so I’ll give this close round to Fighter B to even it up’ because that’s not what they’re paid to do — they’re paid to score each round and try to find a winner for each of those rounds. I’d rather that than some jackwagon scoring nine even rounds in a 12-round fight in a fit of indecision.

Now yes there have been out-of-line cards, that’s not what I’m talking about, but you can have a one-sided decision and it not be a one-sided fight. A bad card is one that is one-sided even though the other fighter is clearly, outright winning rounds (not close ones that could swing either way).

 

I think when you get to a certain level — probably around contender in most cases (but sometimes a ranked guy is a complete unknown … like nobody really knew anything about Azumah Nelson and people probably figured it was a gimme for Sanchez but it turned out to be very competitive) — you’re dealing with more knowns than unknowns.

If two guys are making their first step up at the same time to fight each other — say a 15-0 guy against a 17-0 guy — then we learn something from that fight that we didn’t know before it obviously. If one guy is way better we figure he’s more likely to be going places.

But a lot of times you can tell to some degree by looking at who is the ‘house’ fighter (the one promoted by the promoter) and who is in the corner (Manny Steward and Eddie Futch weren’t likely to be ring-walking a guy with no future, same with the top trainers today) to know who has the edge. If an Eddie Hearn guy on an Eddie Hearn card is fighting a guy who is maybe ranked but doesn’t have major promotional backing, Hearn’s side figures they picked a guy they expect to beat.

Of course the fighters have something to say about that. Kownacki had the backing of DiBella Entertainment and Helenius was figured to be on the downside but lo and behold Helenius beat him and repeated it in a rematch. Anthony Joshua was favored over Ruiz but lost to him. Etc.

As for odds, just like with football or basketball that’s more of a reflection of what the oddsmakers think the public will bet — Deontay Wilder is going to be favored in his next fight (unless it’s against Fury or the Usyk-AJ winner) most likely because he has a big enough name that the public will likely put money on him. Fights where the combatants are less known is probably based more on what the oddsmakers think (or with some research hear) insiders think because the vast majority of money coming on a random bantamweight title fight is likely to be coming from professional gamblers who think they know something.

But more people will be on Alabama football (name brand) to win and cover so the line maybe leans higher toward how many points Alabama is getting than the reality of the gap between the teams. Likewise, the Holmes-Cooney odds probably leaned more Cooney than the reality would suggest because there were a lot of casuals who thought the big, hard-hitting white boy was going to come through; or in the case of Lewis-Tyson there were probably bets from casuals who thought Mike Tyson was still Mike Tyson and foolishly put money on him.

I don’t know if that helps but that’s probably about the best I can explain it.

Wait, I can share the wisdom of the philosopher Randall “Tex” Cobb, who once told me this: “Big money always takes an angle on small money.” When in doubt, put your money with the big money.