(starting boxing in US) Sparring was the gospel of New York gyms. It was their faith. Everybody spars. Sparring is how you become a good fighter. It is far more important than the road work, the bag work, the skipping, the shadow boxing[url] This content is protected [/url], all of it. The most essential thing you need to do if you want to be a good fighter is to spar four or five times a week without fail. And in New York, sparring was not going through the motions either - these were merciless bang-ups. This was a boxing commandment I took with me when I returned to England and to which I adhered throughout my career. I started off with one set of three rounds, then over the months that progressed into six-rounders, then eventually full-blooded 12-rounders. We even did some 15-rounders to condition ourselves so that a 12-round fight felt easier. That was how I honed my ring intelligence. (against Les Wisinewski) I was on song from the very first bell. This was my artistic license on display, pure exhibitionism. If you watch this fight, you will appreciate the dexterity and complexity of my moves and punches. I was catching his punches as easily as catching a ball thrown by a child. That allowed me the freedom to shine. All these seemingly silly little shots were so impressive and inspiring to the judges, it was all very deliberate. The objective is to catch the eye of the judges and people. However, although some of these moves look small and relatively simple, they are the result of all those thousands and thousands of hours of repetition in the gym. This sort of poetry in the ring does not just happen by accident. For example, when I circled the ring in this fight, this was not me playing, this was all method, this had all been premeditated and done time and time again. That deft sleight of foot is not from the road work, it is more the product of circling in the gym hundreds of thousands of times. If you don't do it in training, you can't do it in the ring. Even when you are using footwork like that, you need to take care, you are still fighting a professional. Out of 52 professional fights, I have probably been on song, and by that I mean poetry in motion, maybe 15 times. This bout was one of them.
