Self trained Boxers

Beibut Shumenov

 

Donaire was trained by his father and older brother.

 

Clubber Lang.

 

i suppose you could have a fair amount of success training yourself, if you are using the correct methods. but how would you know youre doing it correct? its much easier to have someone that knows what its suppose to be, show you. then you can perfect that or modify it to you and your particular strengths. the problem is that so many trainers today know very little about the whole art and science of it. watching and listening to trainers in particular the last few years has shown me how so many trainers around today, even at the highest levels, are crap coaches. they are sometimes unaware of the simplest most effective techniques for doing things. perhaps that is the reason why highest level competition is reduced to so few fighters. its just that too many arent being taught right.

 

Chris Eubanks jnr.

 

I had a trainer fix my elbow positioning with one simple drill. Same trainer also showed me why I struggled with head movement and counter punching. All he pointed out was that when I go on the defensive, my legs spread out too wide apart, so I get stuck and thus am unable to do much from that position. Anyone on my level or above would always exploit it.
I don´t think I could have ever noticed that myself, unless I did a film study on myself or something.

Marcos Maidana is my favorite when it comes to boxers showing clear improvements. He didn´t change his style one bit, but improved leaps and bounds in less than a year. And in a couple of years he was good enough to give Mayweather hell.
Best part of it was Robert Garcia saying something in the lines of: "I am not here to change Maidana. I am here to fix things and to improve upon." Which he did, and Maidana became a beast of a boxer-puncher with a world class jab.

 

robert is a great trainer, but hes had the benefit of learning not just boxing, but training, from an old school trainer who understands boxing.
i wrote this 4 years ago, when discussing the same subjects. i taught what i am describing to one of the youngsters who worked for me who was learning boxing. about 6 months later he came and showed me this video. It shows finito, one of the most technically perfect boxers ever, physically illustrating what i said, to marco. and marco says he wasnt aware of that technique, and that he was going to employ it with his students. I time stamped it. set captions to english and you can understand what they are saying.

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Jimmy Smith........I highly doubt his style came from anyone other than himself.

 

Joe Gans always claimed to have never had a formal trainer, instead claiming he modelled his style by watching technicians like Jack McAuliffe and ‘Nonpareil’ Jack Dempsey.

Larry Foley, the great trainer who single handedly developed the talent pool in Australia, said that Young Griffo needed little to no guidance in learning the fundamentals because it came so naturally to him.

John L. Sullivan always took pride in the fact that he never had a formal trainer, though there’s some debate behind that as it seems like Billy Madden and Mike Donovan played some sort of role in developing his skills.

 

Back in ye old times there was more likelihood of self trained fighters - though you will often find significant influences along the way - exposure to other great fighters.

Jack Johnson had that type of experience but otherwise you could also call Jack self trained.

 

Charley Zelenoff….and it really shows, I think.

 

Calzaghe's dad was a singer, not sure he had any serious prior boxing experience.

 

I think it was Mark de Mori (Haye's comeback opponent) that learned to box from YouTube videos.

 

Koichi Wajima trained himself and ended up as undisputed JMW champ thanks to his unorthodox style.