Do these Sparring stories hold any weight on how a fight would go ?

On another note both Charles and now I recently heard but haven’t seen proof Harold Johnson both said they whooped Liston in sparring. Both had a similar style so who knows

 

No.

The whole point of sparring, is to shake off the rust, and find the weaknesses in your game.

Of course it is going to produce some rather odd results.

 

yet Rosario manhandled him with ease to the point where he couldn’t or wouldn’t even fight back. So it makes you wonder just what kind of level this light heavyweight was that Bramble was beating up in sparring?

 

Was a local pro. Pretty decent area pro certainly not world-class.
Saw a welterweight spar and beat up a heavyweight although the welterweight was a world-class ranked contender and the heavyweight was just a local pro.
Rosario hurt Bramble and up until that point Bramble had never been hurt like that before. Impressive performance by Rosario.

 

I never heard about Ruiz given Lewis hell because it probably never happened. Burley would of knocked out Robinson which is why Robinson never fought him in a legit bout. Greg Page could of been a decent threat to Tyson depending on how motivated and in shape he was in.

 

Liston was very green when he was Charles's sparring partner. I'd guess it was the same when he sparred Johnson (if he in fact did).

 

In his auto biography Louis has it the other way roundwith him handlingWalcott well and Jersey Joe abruptly leaving camp.

 

I think everyone has already given the more obvious reasons why incidents or complexions in sparring don’t necessarily translate to an actual, competitive bout.

Also, there are far more many rds sparred compared to those fought in actual competition.

There’s always certain odds, no matter how long, of something happening given enough chances - sparring provides for many more chances than actual fighting time does for even the most unlikely events to actually occur.

Still, as someone already posted, when such instances are leaked, they are nonetheless attention grabbing for the very fact that they are far less likely to occur/be seen in official combat.

 

I interacted with Klompton on this one and he said the same and actually came up with a picture from memory of Walcott on the deck.

This highlights what i posted earlier - what the **** are you to believe when in so many cases completely opposite narratives come out depending on which camp you read.

 

Great post and just about nailed it imo. Fighters have off days, good days, tired days and probably can’t be bothered days. I don’t think much can be read into sparring. Some guys are gym fighters and very good in that environment. Put the small gloves on under the lights and it’s a different story. The two are completely different as anyone who has stepped through the ropes, amateur or pro will confirm.

 

Sparring actually means nothing in the big picture.
Joe LasIsi actually used to get the better of Virgil Hill in sparring even knocking him down.
When they actually had an actual match Hill easily outclassed Lasisi stopping him.

 

I was reading an interview with Jody Ballard who was one of Ali's training partners towards the end of his career. He said Ali told him that he shook him with a right and it's a good thing it wasn't a real fight or he would have been in trouble. Was that Ali just being nice? By the way Ballard said Ali never tried to hurt his sparring partners.

 

Just an FYI article which includes reference to the claim that Jimmy Ellis knocked Ali down twice in sparring - during prep for Shavers in 1977.

My net takeaway? - didn’t happen and there is believable motive identified as to why such a false claim might’ve been circulated. Articles such as this are absolute gold.
[url]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1977/09/29/if-ali-has-a-friend-its-jimmy-ellis/c49952c2-5061-402e-a4fe-75385c56ebdd/[/url]

 

Clint Eastwood hit the speed bag better than rusty Ali did on the David Frost show. Didn’t miss a beat. Ali was duly impressed.

Obvious conclusion: Dirty Harry > Muhammad and outrageously ducked throughout Ali’s career.

 

God knows where you heard that. He collapsed randomly after about a minute total with no punch having landed immediately before, and was rushed to hospital for checks. They had been feeling each other out with jabs and feints. This was 1999 at Lennox Lewis’s gym in London. Jimmy Tibbs was training Collins and Ronnie Davies training Eastman. Collins was going to fight Calzaghe.