Fighters who were crap in the gym, but good come fight night

Sonny Liston and George Foreman's extreme power and strength were a hinderance in sparring as they weren't allowed, or just encouraged not to, use it. Footage I've seen of both men sparring they seem pretty lackadaisical. Too strong for their own good.

Monzon and Ali would have to be the best examples of being **** in the gym then mint come fight night. From what I gathered Monzon's training regime consisted of a 45 minute run in the morning then later in the day some skipping, some speed bag and sparring. I think both men were so great come fight night because they mastered how to relax and not expend energy needlessly.

 

The Black Adonis

 

Elaborate on Rocky Marciano, from what I understand he was one of the hardest working fighters out there. What was wrong about his sparring?

 

Marciano stands out the most, D

 

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Willie Meehan

 

Monzon used to smoke while doing his roadwork. You'd think that and all of the women he was ****ing might've sapped him somewhat, but no. He never looked out of breath or faded in fights.

 

David Tua comes to mind.

 

Marciano details on sparring anybody?

 

Well i'm guessing since strong punchers are usually guided not to use their power and scare away sparring partners such as Joe Louis did aLOT, Marciano couldn't use his biggest asset, and then what he's left to jab and throw non hurtfull body punches, that's all a sparring partner needs to outbox and make Rocky look bad

 

i am not too sure, being that i read somewhere with late manny steward saying that he once made a fool out of hector camacho in Kronk gym, where hector went completely beserk and had to apologize later........

 

Thanks, becuase I couldn't picture rocky getting beat up in sparring- outboxed sure maybe even made look silly at times but once he landed suzie q or a left hook its goodnight. Thanks for the response

 

Bill Cayton claims Tyson had a tendency to look sluggish and sometimes get dropped in sparring. He was reportedly down against Oliver McCall and Mike Williams, and is on film getting dropped by Greg Page (ominously it seems, all fighters that Douglas beat on his run up to his fight with Tyson).

 

Everyone seemed to think they could beat Marciano until they got in the ring with him, this is a problem when we look at old movies of him we have to remember it is a fight not an exhibition.

 

Maybe we rate sparring to high, slipping a jab and counterpunching are techniques that have to be mastered before getting in the ring to spar, shadowboxing is so important i remember reading about people hearing Tyson shadowing late at night in his room when he was a teen. you need to work out a technique before it can be used in sparring.

 

I read that too. But that must've been on a day we wanted to prove something. Generally Pete didn't look that good in sparring. He would mostly do body sparring and his sparring partners regularly got the better of him, people like Zab Judah.

Which tells you that sparring shouldn't be used to judge who would win in actual pro fights.