In durable heavyweight Dave Allen and ambitious cruiserweight Pat Brown, coach Jamie Moore has his work cut out.
Known for their lighthearted relationship, it did not start off that way for Allen and Brown when Moore put them in the ring and had them spar for the first time.
“They’ve found a happy medium now, in all honesty, because you know, every boxer, at whatever extent, at some point, has got an ego, and egos aren’t good,” Moore told BoxingScene. “But they’re good – if you recognize that you’ve got one and you can learn to control it, then that’s good.”
With both wanting to be the top fighter at Moore’s gym, the trainer said that they both went at it when they first sparred
“They absolutely just went at it, and I just pulled it, and I said, ‘I’m not having this, this ain’t an ego competition, and I’m not gonna stand there and watch you two knock lumps out of each other’,” he said.
With that, they did not spar again for another year, but one day a sparring partner for Brown failed to show and Allen volunteered.
“So it was like a teacher sitting two pupils down and going, ‘Listen guys, you know, you need to understand this’, and I was like, ‘This is going to be nuts, if we’ve got you two in the same gym, one’s at the beginning of his career, one’s coming towards the end where he’s got so much experience under his belt, and you can both help each other and learn off each other, it's gonna be a crying shame if it doesn’t work. Please don’t ruin this now, because if you do, I'll never let you spar again’, and I promise you, it was unbelievable to watch.
“It were brilliant, because it was a perfect blend of that raw talent in Pat, and that old-school experience style in Dave, and Pat had his moments, and Dave had his moments, and then Pat started to copy Dave, and mimic the little defensive movements, what he was doing, and I was like, ‘Lads, that’s what I'm talking about, like, this is unbelievable to watch, because just in those few rounds, you started to rub off on each other’.
“They’re really good mates; they’ve found the balance with each other, and they’re a comedy act together as well. It works really well.”
Allen is coming off Saturday’s high-profile defeat by Russia’s Arslanbek Makhmudov. Brown is set to box against Felix Valera of the Dominican Republic on November 1 at Orlando’s Caribe Royale.
Brown, it is widely known, can punch to the extent that it’s proving difficult to get him rounds. It is why he was matched with the usually durable 12-6 (10 KOs) Austine Nnamdi in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but he blitzed Nnamdi in two rounds.
“It’s a good problem,” said Moore. “This is the conversation I keep having with [Brown’s adviser] Sam Jones, [promoter] Matchroom, the matchmaker – I’m on the phone to Tom [Dallas] saying, ‘Listen, I know we keep saying this, but it’s a good problem to have, but we’re focusing on sparring now, because listen, I’ve rarely seen a talent like him coming through’.
“I’m going to be honest. I don’t want a run before we can walk and get ahead of ourselves, but he really needs rounds and it’s such a hard thing to do. Last time, in Belfast, I’d sort of said to him, ‘Listen, Pat, don’t go out of the traps too quick. First of all, we feel like this kid is a half-decent fighter, and he could give you problems later on in the fight, so don’t expend too much energy early on, but just have a little look at him, you know – ease your way in, don’t go out of the traps too quick’, and he did [as asked].
“First round, he just took his time, worked a little bit on some defensive stuff that we’ve been working on, but as soon as he started letting his hands go, he just hurts people. As soon as he lands, he hurts people, and it’s going to be so exciting to watch, because ultimately, his instinct is to fight. He really has to hold himself back to control himself, and we all love fighters like that. For him to be able to beat, and compete, with the best fighters in the world, he’s got to add a little bit of ringcraft on the way, so that’s why we need rounds, and if we’re not going to get any fights, then we need him sparring, so we’re currently bringing in two sparring partners all the time, and we have to do one-in, one-out with them, just to make sure that he gets the rounds. But he’s a special fighter, he really is.”
Critics say that Brown is too happy to engage and has been caught a few times, if not hurt. Moore has seen it all on social media, which he deems both a blessing and a curse.
“It’s so good for publicity and getting your name out there, and then you get a hundred people criticizing you that you would never have heard that sort of critique before in the past, so there’s loads of positives, loads of negatives to it,” he explained.
“Pat Brown’s got a good chin. I’ve seen him take a few decent shots. He has got a good defense. He just, when the danger element’s not there and he feels like… he definitely is one of those fighters where attack is his best form of defense, and then as soon as we started working on defensive stuff, he’s really come on.
“Actually, over the last few months in terms of when he’s sparring, he’s listening more, and I’m talking to him about the importance of it – you don’t have to win spars. Spars aren’t for winning. Spars are for improving and getting better, and I’ve spoken about the core nature of Pat Brown is how powerful, how aggressive; that brute strength of his. Why would I ever try and take that away from him? I’m not going to try and do that, but there’s going to be a point in time further down the line when you offload on someone and they go, ‘Come on then.’ [Where] he's maybe stood in a mirror looking at a Pat Brown-type fighter. Then he’s going to have to have ringcraft, awareness, defensive capabilities – all those little other boxes that need ticking along the way. We’re trying to do that now, and if we can’t get it in fights, then we have to do it in sparring. So I’m aware of the stuff what he needs to work on, and sometimes I can see what he just wants to do. He just wants to let his hands go, and I’m going, ‘You can do that in a minute, but just keep focusing on the stuff you need to grow on around the edges, because ultimately, you will always be able to drag yourself back to that sort of core where you’re at’.
“People get hit in boxing, that’s what happens, especially when you’re a come-forward aggressive fighter. But, you know, it’s very much a risk-reward thing. If you’re going to put yourself in the line to get hit, then you’re in line to be able to hit someone as well.”
Moore works with the fascinating Allen, has recently parted ways with the tricky Jack Catterall, and also has the welterweight Conah Walker in his stable. Like Brown, and like Moore himself as a fighter, Walker is an aggressive type.
“I’ve never really trained a fighter who would class as ‘Aggressive’ since Tommy Coyle, who was my first fighter, and that was really my style as a fighter as well,” said the former southpaw. “So, it’s my favorite type of style to coach and I’ve never really had anyone until Pat’s come back now and Conah Walker, and they’re both right up my street.”
Moore will no doubt help plot Allen’s path back from Makhmudov, but there’s no way it will come against Brown, despite their jokes that they might one day fight.
“They ain't fighting,” said Moore.
