British Boxing Training and whats wrong

Also, maybe a 'Hatton Effect' has influenced our younger fighters. He soon trained to lose weight only, no extra technique. This is why he really struggled once he was stateside!

 

Amateur boxing should be used to develop skills for the pro game, certainly not the case at the moment

 

Inactivity is the killer in this country. The BoxNation promotions will hopefully remedy this for a lot of young pros who languish for months between fights. This isn't their fault, it's down to a lack of cards for them to fight on.

Sparring against different styles is also important, as it gets a fighter out of his comfort zone.

British trainers are starting to catch up with their US counterparts when it comes to employing specialised strength and conditioning work and paying more attention to nutrition. Before it was always the case that more is more when it came to conditioning fighters over here. Now the importance or recovery and eating for recovery is being introduced and the fighters look stronger for it.

I lived in the US for a number of years and worked out at Wildcard. Make no mistake, there they believe in gym wars to get a fighter ready for a contest. In sparring no quarter is asked and none is given. The average fighter there has more ring craft than here. They know how to utilise angles better, head movement, usually have a better defense. Here there are still too many fighters who move in straight lines. This IS down to lack of training knowledge.

But I'd say overall the standard over here is improving.

 

You can't use Hatton as a positive example on any aspect of training. He spent his prefight training camps doing nothing but lose weight. His contemporaries Mayweather and Pacquiao walk around a few pounds over their fighting weight all the time so spend their training time developing as fighters.

 

Spot on. Inactivity is a huge problem and it's so counter-productive. It stunts fighters growth, especially at the embryonic stage in their development.

When they win a strap it gets even worse as 90% of fighters then only fight about twice a year. Mainly because promoters are only willing to guarentee two fights a year and really sucks. No wonder fighters don't improve.

I want you to look at Oscar De La Hoya in 1997. He fought 6 times and it's no coincidence that it was one of his best years. After he became a part time fighter his career suffered as a result.

The old timers use to say, 'inactivity is a fighters worst enemy'. What generally ends up happening is the longer they go between fights the more chance of them letting themselves go or not getting up to any good. If you keep them active there is less chance of them getting out of shape or falling into other distractions. Because they're being constantly accupied and forced to live a fighters existance.

 

One reason I believe the best pre-War fighters would outbox and beat up the best modern era fighters - they stayed sharp and sharpened and had more ring time to hone their ring generalship.