Sparring Stories

To be honest with you, I had never heard of either knocking Bowe out, however a certain cruiserweight (who was well used-up by that point) knocked Bowe cold.

 

nipper daly v mickey walker...

Sparring partner to Mickey Walker – June 1927 (aged 14)

"When Mickey Walker was signed up to defend his world middleweight title against Scotsman Tommy Milligan at the Olympia on the above date the whole world of British boxing fans were agog with interest.

Jack Kearns, Walker’s manager, struck camp at Taggs Island, which was situated in the middle of the Thames river at Hampton Court. Kearns, who was the former manager of Jack Dempsey, former heavyweight champion of the world, was very businesslike and arranged what order we would spar with his present champ.

As he looked at me I could see the disappointment in his eyes, and he said, 'You’re far too light for this job.' I weighed 7st-12lb or 110lb, American method. My manager explained to him that I was engaged for my speed, not my strength. Mickey, who was talking to another of his partners, noticed that we were talking, rather excitedly came to us and on hearing the cause of the argument said, 'Okay I’ll just spar with him last to speed me up, and he better be fast.'

I sat at the ringside and watched Mickey spar two rounds each with a Malcolm Campbell, middleweight champion of Scotland and Tom Fowler, a heavyweight who had served his time as a sparring partner to most of our leading heavies. Walker, not a brilliantly clever boxer but clever just the same, with a K.O. punch in either hand, and I was his sparring partner. One of his punches could kill me. Still, I had a job to do and I intended to do it as well as I could.

While watching Mickey spar I had noticed that he would make his partner miss with their initial punch by swaying backward, and then counter [the hopelessly reaching boxer] with his right. At the first opportunity I had, I feinted with my left lead, Mickey drew back from his hips and was temporarily defenceless as I moved forward and connected with a perfect right hand punch on his jaw. Mickey stopped boxing, shook hands, patted me on the back and said, 'That was a great punch kid.'

After I had finished my training I was told that we had been booked to appear at Jimmy Butler’s boxing booth at the Welsh Harp, Hendon in the evening and that I was to stand on the front of the booth and take on all comers. I did two houses, which means I had two fights, three rounds each. Still, it brought my manager in a few shillings and saved me wasting time. I only fought two fights as there was not time for any more, as it was 10pm and the fair was closing down.

(On another occasion, as I had missed a 15 rd contest at Premierland on Sunday, my opponent Young Siki had not turned up, the Prof sent me the next day, Bank Holiday Monday, to work at a boxing booth at Lea Bridge Road. When I started work I created something of a sensation as it seemed that most of the young men in the crowd wanted to take me on as I was 15 years of age, skinny and did not look like a fighter.)

Still, the time saved me from having several more bouts. I’d had an easy day, only having sparred with the world middleweight champion and fought two opponents at a booth. I was very proud at having sparred with the world’s middleweight champion and also pleased that Mickey had pulled his punches."

- Nipper Pat Daly.

 

ali v tommy hearns spar..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2thglwsTak

 

often told these ones..


Sept 2, 1920 -

Dempsey tackled Bill Tate, Harry Greb and Marty Farrell in sparring this afternoon. He took them on in that order, boxing two rounds with Tate and three each with Greb and Farrell. The bout with Greb was a real one. It was the best work-out Dempsey has had. The Pittsburgher was in prime shape, and although he weighs only 165 pounds he gave the champion a real honust-to-goodness battle. Dempsey hasn't seen so many gloves in a long time as Greb showed him. Greb was all over him and kept forcing him around the ring throughout the session. Dempsey could do but little with the speedy light heavyweight, while Greb seemed to be able to hit Dempsey almost at will. Time and again Greb made the champion miss with his famous right and left hooks to the head and countered with heavy swings to the head and hooks to the body.

Greb was a veritable whirlwind. Twenty-five pounds lighter than the champion and about four inches shorter, Harry made the champion step lively. He had to jump off the floor to hit Dempsey in the head when the latter was standing straight, but managed to do it and landed without leaving himself open to Jack's snappy hooks and short swings. One of the most notable things about Dempsey's boxing is the fact that he is not hitting as straight as he did in Toledo. This is not a particularly good sign. Why he should hook and swing his blows more is a mystery. He can hit straight when he wants to, and when he does his blows carry a wealth of power behind them, for the champion knows how to put his powerful shoulders behind his punches and how also to get the necessary asistance from his legs by rising to the ball of the rearward foot when the punch gets over. It may be that Dempsey does not care to hit straight from the shoulder, fearing to punish his partners too severly.

Sept 3, 1920 -

Dempsey sparred three sessions with Harry Greb, Pittsburgh lightweight, and another trio with Marty Farrell, Pacific Coast middleweight. Miske felt the lack of capable sparring mates and he was compelled to set the pace himself. He stepped the first two rounds with George Wilson, a negro heavyweight, the second two with Jack Heinen.

Early in the third round Greb's head collided with Dempsey's mouth, cutting the champion's tongue so severly that he spat blood for the remainder of the round.

The Pittsburgher was in fine fettle after the excellent showing he made against the champion. He was full of pep. With the call of time signalizing the beginning of activities, Greb promptly rushed Dempsey. The onslaught was so sudden that Jack was caught off his guard and it took a solid left hook into the body, plied with all the force at Greb's command, which is considerable, to jolt Dempsey into action. Then the fur began to fly.

It was a whirlwind three rounds that these two fighters staged for the edification of the biggest crowd that has yet shoe-horned its way into the grandstand at the baseball park in front of which the ring is built. There were fully 2,000 people present, and they were treated to as much action in those three rounds as is usually crowded into eight of a real bout.

The bout caused the crowd to burst into cheers and prolonged applasuse. In fact, during the intermission between the second and third rounds Ted Hayes, who acts as announcer at the Dempsey camp, was compelled to request the spectators to refrain from urging either of the men to greater efforts.

Although Dempsey insists that his wind is perfect and that he is not troubled by shortness of breath while working out, to those who have studied him closely it appears as if his wind might be in better shape. He was puffing very hard after boxing Greb. Of course, it was an unusually fast workout, but it seemed to take him longer than it should to recover his wind even after so strenuous a session.

Sept 4, 1920 -

Harry Greb, looking as chipper as ever in his U.S. Navy Jersey and his black tights, climbed into the ring to take Dempsey over the jumps for two rounds of three minutes each.

Just as soon as they squared off it was apparent that there was to be none of the continuous slam-bang stuff which had accompanied their previous engagements. Greb did not rush the champion and they feinted and pranced about for a full minute before either made a real lead. Toward the close of the round they met near mid-ring and there was a sharp exchange of body punches. The second round was a little livelier, but it wasn't a cyclone, and the crowd was somewhat dissappointed. The fans had expected to see more of a real battling than had featured the jousts between these two.

"Doc Kearns, who was managing Jack Dempsey, refused to let his tiger in the ring with Harry Greb. They did spar on two occasions. The first time was when Dempsey was getting ready for his title defense against Billy Miske in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Greb ripped into dempsey, punching the heaveyweight champion as he pleased, until Kearns finally threw him out of the ring for being too rough."

"It is not generally known however, that Greb and Dempsey did actually meet in the ring. It was at Jack's Atlantic City training camp. They were to box four rounds with sixteen ounce training gloves. Jack Kearns refereed. Harry came snorting out of his corner raising hell with the heaveyweight champion's middle. Dempsey looked confused, he hesitated about throwing punches at first. But he became desperate along about the second round and started putting ginger behind his left hooks. But Greb raced around so fast and poked so many jabs into Jack's face that the great Mauler couldn't land one solid wallop during the entire exhibition. The next day, in bold black type the size off an egg, some papers carried the headline "GREB MAKES DEMPSEY LOOK LIKE A KITTEN."

(Quotes taken from - New York Times / The Washington Post / Ring Magazine / Boxing and Wrestling Magazine)

 

Randy Turpin never pulled his punches in sparring, even on his brothers, Dick and Jackie.heavyweights were drafted in to spar with the licker for his title chance at Ray Robinson and all had to work hard for their pay.
Middle brother Jackie got flattened so often he decided to don womens underwear to lighten the session.
When Jackie loosened his robe before a sparring session to show his lingerie the leamington licker fell about laughing and the act was used for open air sparring at Gwrych Castle and became popular with the summer crowds

 

great ^^

when turpin fought bobo olsen it was reported that the only sparring he did was 30 rounds with featherweight brother jackie...and jackie was a central area featherweight champ he didnt get a british title....although when questioned on it before the fight randy said they did 58 rounds.

I did tell you jackie was my old trainer didnt I turpinr ?

 

You did yeah:good
Randy hardly trained at all for Olsen and went out in the first 3 rounds knowing he wasn't going to last long.
Its testament to his bottle that he went the full distance despite his lack of fitness.
Jackie won that night didn't he ??

 

thats right...you know i really need to get back to jackies book...read a good bit of and put it down and it went out of my head

 

I loved it and liked the part where Nigel Benn had said at Dicks funeral.
" thanks for all you've done for black British boxing"
Class !!!!

 

January 1986.

Muhammad Ali shuffles back into a ring at aged near 44, testing himself by sparring with Tony Tubbs and Tim Witherspoon.

"I told him that if he looked good, I'd put him in there for an exhibition" - Don King.


....................................................

Muhammad Ali's fists and feet picked up speed when Jimmy Ellis called ''time" on the former champion's eighth and final round of sparring.

Ali heard him and knew his time was up. But he needed to end this sparring session, his seventh in as many days, with his own personal punctuation point.

So he advanced on Tony Tubbs, the World Boxing Association heavyweight champion, behind a flicking jab as the crowd began to chant "Ali, Ali." And he threw a three-punch combination.

Then, he brought the cheering to a crescendo with a slow-motion version of the old Ali shuffle and walked away.

The End.

Or was it the beginning ? Was it just good, clean fun? A way to lose weight? Or is there something more that has prompted this return to center stage for boxing's most beloved figure?

"I'm coming back . . . ," Ali said teasingly one day last week to a crowd that strained to hear his barely audible voice, "to my senses."

The sparring sessions started a week ago when Ali, dressed in his street clothes, walked up to Slim Jim Robinson, Tim Witherspoon's trainer, and asked for a protective cup.

"He said he wanted to go three rounds with Tim," Robinson said. "I gave him a headgear and he slid a cup on over his pants and went three rounds in his street shoes.

"The next day he came in with a sweat suit and a pair of sneakers and we've been sparring ever since, sometimes six rounds, sometimes eight. He's been as many as 10 with Tim.

"I don't know what it's all about, really. But I know the last time this happened, he walked into one of my training sessions when I had Eddie Mustafa Muhammad.

"He went in in his street clothes just like this time and boxed a few rounds. Then he said we're going to box until one of us drops. They went 30 minutes before I made them stop.

"When he came out of the ring, he said. 'I'm going to make a comeback'.

"That was in 1980, about a year after he had won his title back from Leon Spinks. About nine months later, he fought Larry Holmes."

In an interview after his final session with Witherspoon Monday, Ali, who will turn 44 Friday, delighted in tantalizing a reporter by raising the possibility of a comeback and then stepping back from it.

"I came in to lose some weight and feel better," he said. "I lost about 15 pounds. Look at this."

He stood and pulled the top of the sweat suit out of his waist band. The liquified excesses of years of inactivity rolled in rivulets from beneath the suit.

"I feel surprisingly good," Ali said. "I feel like I'm in my prime. I'm working with the top contender for the first time in five years. My punches are landing, body punches landing.

''I asked Don King if he would get me an exhibition fight if I looked good against the top contender. I said I want a 10-round exhibition, five rounds apiece with two top contenders in Madison Square Garden.

"And I said if I look good against them, would he get me a title shot. He said, 'Yes' ".

King's version differed slightly. "I told him that if he looked good, I'd put him in there for an exhibition," King said. "He's bringing himself back.

"I'd be willing to get some other retired fighter. I'd get Joe Frazier or somebody like that and let them make a little money for charity."

Witherspoon had some reservations about the comeback possibility.

"I don't know about a comeback," Witherspoon said. "But he might be able to fight a few exhibitions. He amazes me. He's still got the timing. He still throws the jab pretty good.

"He can take a punch to the body, too. I hit him to the body for real. But I can't bring myself to hit him hard in the head.

"He tells me to hit him in the head hard. But I can't. I don't want the whole world mad at me."

(by Elmer Smith)

 

Lebelle lied on that one.