James Degale

Nice one. I have read DeGale likes a gym war...

 

Too many gym wars for his own good. He's ganna be shot pretty quickly at this rate.

 

I wish he'd have more of a war in the ring rather than blowing his load in the gym. He needed a bit more of that against Groves.

 

That's just generally speaking, mate. Everyone knows James gets it in in the gym. Really leaves a lot in there. He's not the only one. Many fighters don't get the purpose of sparring. Some of them (we all know who they are) are in danger of becoming whats known as 'gym fighters'. James put some serious heat into sparring a kid named Deon Savage and the rumours are that it was savage (pun intended) that's generally how his sparring is.

 

Different fighters have different attitudes & approaches to sparring

A lot of great fighters were brutal in sparring (not calling DeGale a great fighter btw) & had ferocious gym wars

 

That's true, DrMo. Many fighters were lost to gym wars in places like Philly. It all becomes about winning the sparring session rather than rehearsing and learning. Some guys just really like to feel that punishment though. That's how they prepar. Some guys would purposely take punishment to get their body used to it, but as you say everybody is different.

Generally speaking too many gym wars are not a good idea. They do really shorten careers and it's even worse if you're not a special talent and leaving something in the gym will make a big difference to your performance. Sparring for me is the most important aspect of a fighters prep and needs to be got right.

It can burn some fighters out. For example i believe gym wars have had a detrimental affect on someone like Shane Mosley. His sparring wars are legendary and i swear i hear slurring in some of his speech. That for me is partly due to those gym wars he would have with top quality fighters. I think some fighters take more punishment in the gyms than they do in the ring. Never forget what Nazim Richardson said about it. He said in sparring you're either just taking punishment or learning something.

James Degale has the mentality of performing at 100% everytime in sparring sessions, someone like Jimmy Mc would probabily encourage that. It's not possible to do that everytime in the gym. You have to know how to take something off and still learn, putting 100% in sparring sessions sometimes means you won't get 100% in the fights. What happens with that attitude to sparring is you reach a certain point and your body rememebers to fail. Sparring is about increasing your performance over time and working on certain things for your upcoming fight. It's not a fight in and of itself. It's also not about measuring your performance by pushing yourself everytime until failure. You can burn yourself out mentally and physically like that.

 

Good stuff.

I thought he was unlucky not to get the decision against Groves, hopefully he can put that right in the not so distant future.

The future's bright, the future's chunky.

 

Good to hear, De Gale should get Sanavia out of there pretty quick if he has any aspirations of going beyond Euro level.

 

WAR DeGale.

Now he's already failed a bit, I actually hope he comes back good again :good

 

So with degale sparring with Ryder, does that mean he's dealing with Matchroom?

 

Love how people assume that because hes sparring with a matchroom fightr,that hes about to sign with them

 

Ryder a novice,remember degale spar with Anthony small now that was a war small was in control of the spar degale got frustrated and started using his head and elbows it got to the stage where smalls coach had to jump in to stop the spar with degale trying to attack him.

 

At least now we know why Degale didn't want to spar Froch. Imagine if he went to war with him on sparring :rofl

I'm not a lover of this type of thing. I remember watching James Kirkland kicking **** out of a sparring partner while his coach just laughed. Thankfully Degale hasn't got that sort out power to hurt someone with a head guard on.

Leave the spiteful stuff for the ring