Boxing superstitions.

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Weight training being bad for you was a huge one until recently

Most champs believe sex (or to an extreme, contact with women) takes something out of you, so you shouldn't before a fight.

Oh, and I personally believe the last one

 

Who was the old time fighter always had a hooker come to his dressingroom before all his fight. He always won The one fight he didnt he LOST!!!

 

Weakens the legs!

I also believe that. I think I remember reading that not ejaculating for long peroids of time up regulates androgen receptors, which are responsible for the effective use of testosterone. Meaning you get 'more bang for your buck'.

Edit: study
https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/99250

 

Marvin Johnson (in)famously did not wash/shower in training camp until the fight was over.

 

That's disgusting.

 

Avoiding Drake.

 

Sounds like some psychological warfare.

The funny thing is the old fighters all done stuff like the indian pins, or the pulley's (like you see Dempsey doing), cutting wood, wrestling, carrying heavy things.

If you're doing a lot of that stuff I think adding in weight training would just tax the same sort of resources too much and not really work in the training. Doing weight training would be better if you wanted to pile on the weight, but that's not what you want to do most of the time.

I actually think the biggest danger with weight training is it seems to cause fighters problems making weight.

 

Pretty sure Tony Galento did the same thing, except I'm pretty sure he did his as a strategy

 

Dempsey's iron blocks in his gloves
Ali being saved from Henry Cooper

 

One of my own, for a while. I first noticed it with Ken Norton, prior to Shavers, I think. Norton did this loosening up his neck muscles thing in the corner prior to the fight where he shook / kind of rotated his head quickly. The next time I saw a fighter do it (I don't remember who, it's been too long) I thought, "He's going to get knocked out. He's doing what Norton did before the Shavers fight." Sure enough, the guy got knocked out. I swear, for a while, if I saw a fighter do it before a fight he got beat. It became my superstition. It seemed to stop after a couple of years, but for a while around 79-81 I was calling fights based on seeing fighters do this loosening up move.

 

Another one... as a kid, around 76-84, I was fascinated by boxing trunks. Like how Ali almost always wore white and black after the FOTC. Or how, starting with the Norton fight, Larry Holmes always wore white and red, unless he was defending against someone he had absolutely no fear of losing to (Lorenzo Zanon, Leroy Jones, Lucian Rodriguez). Ken Norton wore blue or black velvet with white, so I was shocked to see photos of his early fights where he wore white trunks. Hagler seemed to buy a pair of trunks, wear them for several fights, then get a new pair. Other guys seemed to change every fight. I used to wonder about the significance (or lack of significance) of trunk colors with fighters. Aside from Tyson talking about being in all black, Foreman wearing the Zaire trunks against Moorer, and Rocky Balboa telling the promoter he got his colors wrong in the original Rocky, I've never heard fighters explain their choices.

 

I heard someone on here offer a good take on the sex before fights superstition. He commented that while it make not have a biological impact on a boxer, he speculated that it's probably not good for a guy training for war to be falling in love at the same time. He has a point. It's probably harder to obsess over your preparation when you are daydreaming about a new girlfriend.

I thought that was an interesting take on an old idea. Although I would imagine it varies for everyone. Some fighters might benefit from the support and companionship of a strong relationship while others might be derailed by a gf who loves to create drama (in other words: most wamen

 

That's the ticket!!