What do you guys make of the below? It makes sense to some degree, but interested to see how well it works. In short, he places great emphasis on constantly improving muscle memory, and not sparring to reduce injury and increase longevity in ones career and longterm health.
The below is taken from BBC sport:
Ajayi's system - named 'System 9' - has been mocked by many. It involves minimal sparring, endless repetition during pad workouts and, he says, can never be completed, meaning a fighter can't reach a ceiling while following it.
He has at times likened it to following a grading system used in karate.
"I have never judged Anthony on his opponents or his fights, I base things on where he is in the system," explains Ajayi. "I know for him to compete at a certain level he needs to be at a certain point in the system. A year with me is like five years in traditional boxing and Anthony has put in the work."
Costello added: "Tunde has come in for a lot of stick and this fight could be the endorsement of all he has been saying about building a fighter to a world title.
"The main thing for me is sparring. He says in limiting sparring it minimises damage but everyone I have spoken to says it is absolutely crucial. As with any trainer in any sport, he needs an endorsement. If Yarde wins there will be people queuing at his door."
Bunce said: "I hate to sound old school but you have to spar and there has to be a degree of hard contact in the build-up to a fight of this magnitude. I think there are some hard spars that go on behind closed doors, maybe just not six weeks' worth. My one fear here is if Anthony Yarde just falls short people will try to crush Tunde."
Look I'll be real. No professional boxing guy will give you a perfect hook in a fight lol. No matter how graceful your technique is, driven from the ankle to capture the perfect space moment of kinetic energy. His drill system failed him in the fight quite glaringly. Because its based on an optimal world(lala land)... that that's just where it ended. Yarde won 1 round maybe at the beginning and was out of range absorbing jabs while trying to counter with a left hook. 6 rounds of that! By the 7th he finally took a different approach to slip to the inside giving Kovalev some uncertainty with the newly added slot. And then Kovalev stopped throwing his jab, took body shots and then got to be "almost knocked out". Swimming in Olympics: the difference in determining winning from losing on average is 3 strokes... water boils at 212 degrees F not 211. An almost knock out, while suffering a jab knock out and doing so by thoroughly being out boxed isn't a close fight. There wasn't even a knock down, so almost for me is a stretch. By round 9 Kovalev had adapted by putting together right hooks to his body and face every time Yarde came to the inside. After that the fight was over. Couldn't beat Kovalev on inside or outside range in any trade.This was because his coach's system only works in a perfect world. Kovalev isn't perfect, in fact his responses aren't always optimal. But he's a better professional all around. He can deal with the reality of solving problems in real time. Not by imagining and having a predetermined solution to a fight. That's rigid, and why you'd have Yarde trying to counter aimlessly for 6 rounds LMAO Because he was already thinking in a biased manner, that "this left hook will solve my jab problems", but reality didn't play out that way. He had a perfect hook for a couple of rounds, probably didn't get to factor in fatigue and punishment to the equation though.
He tried to use one technique, which wasn't effective, and then switched to a different technique, which was effective.
Cut the jab short with your own jab, instead of catching the jab on the shoulders; technique is still technique.
Anthony Yarde is clearly missing that experience; took to boxing late with all of 12 amateur fights, barely 4 years as a professional, still all of 28 years old.
Passing on a title shot wasn't going to happen, but pause for a moment and think:
Yarde is made mandatory challenger in March 2019, and the WBO let's Warren pull some **** and set the mandatory defense for March 2020 ( in Russia).
To prepare, Yarde fights Chad Dawson and Sullivan Barrera (ability is whatever, but guys can fight, and both can change the look) without changing anything else.
No real extra sparring, live experience versus live bodies, and then Kovalev.
Maybe he can manage his wind better, and maybe he moves to C and D quicker, but I don't think that the system was the problem for him, and I think that'd show it.
The technique is the technique; get it perfect, so that you couldn't miss it if you tried, and then take that technique into the fight.
If you throw a left hook perfect on the mitts, and then **** it up in sparring because you're working with a different style or **** sparring partner, that work won't help you in the fight.
That's why you drill with actually good/active mittwork. Get the technique perfect, and then program in all of the proper responses into muscle memory.
You're throwing a right hand, hook, right hand, and you drill all of the ways you could get to that shot; catch on the glove before, catch on the shoulder before, slip the jab before, cut the jab with your own before, etc.
Some sparring could help confirm that the programming is done properly, but you might not need 100s of rounds of sparring.
That's the chance Tunde Ajayi, Anthony Yarde, and his camp have taken, and it was almost good enough to have Yarde knock out Sergey Kovalev in the 8th round to win a world title.
Yarde was missing a touch of experience at the top level, but he wasn't really missing anything that he could've picked up getting his brains beat in during heavy sparring in his pro career.
Look I'll be real. No professional boxing guy will give you a perfect hook in a fight lol. No matter how graceful your technique is, driven from the ankle to capture the perfect space moment of kinetic energy. His drill system failed him in the fight quite glaringly. Because its based on an optimal world(lala land)... that that's just where it ended. Yarde won 1 round maybe at the beginning and was out of range absorbing jabs while trying to counter with a left hook. 6 rounds of that! By the 7th he finally took a different approach to slip to the inside giving Kovalev some uncertainty with the newly added slot. And then Kovalev stopped throwing his jab, took body shots and then got to be "almost knocked out". Swimming in Olympics: the difference in determining winning from losing on average is 3 strokes... water boils at 212 degrees F not 211. An almost knock out, while suffering a jab knock out and doing so by thoroughly being out boxed isn't a close fight. There wasn't even a knock down, so almost for me is a stretch. By round 9 Kovalev had adapted by putting together right hooks to his body and face every time Yarde came to the inside. After that the fight was over. Couldn't beat Kovalev on inside or outside range in any trade.This was because his coach's system only works in a perfect world. Kovalev isn't perfect, in fact his responses aren't always optimal. But he's a better professional all around. He can deal with the reality of solving problems in real time. Not by imagining and having a predetermined solution to a fight. That's rigid, and why you'd have Yarde trying to counter aimlessly for 6 rounds LMAO Because he was already thinking in a biased manner, that "this left hook will solve my jab problems", but reality didn't play out that way. He had a perfect hook for a couple of rounds, probably didn't get to factor in fatigue and punishment to the equation though.
No sparring makes sense to a guy like Donald Cerrone who's been in a ton of MMA fights, is getting older, and had troubles with injuries for years. Its different for a boxer, especially one that is barely getting experience at the world level. I'll take proven coaching systems and techniques that legendary coaches have developed over the last 100 years before falling for some inspirational nonsense
The Ajayi system is different, for good or bad. He's come through with it with Junior Saba, a bit ago, and now Anthony Yarde. And, intellectually, it's a pretty straightforward system.
Rather than you, as a fighter, figuring out the trips/traps over thousands of rounds of sparring, Ajayi's system gives you the answers on the front end, with let's say a hundred rounds to check that you've been told the truth.
You give the fighter all the triggers (what to do when you see a jab, what can you do when you throw a jab from long/mid, etc), get them as sharp on the triggers as possible, and then said fighter riffs based on what they see during the fight.
Yarde will hopefully take a couple more good fights to round out the experience to make another title run, but his career will be his career (and Ajayi has stacked the deck that he makes it out with his brains by leaving very little of him in the sparring ring).
He's not gonna have many brain cells left if Tunde's best advice in the corner is pound on your chest and take punishment. If he really cared about Yarde's health he would have thrown in the towel in 10th round IMO.
Jesus, I'm glad somebody said it. The idea of not sparring is absurd. I think some people speaking against it here need to remember that not all sparring is two guys going to war to prepare for a fight while shortening their careers. It rarely is. Watch actual pros spar. Good pros. They will get someone similar to their opponent in front of them so the look isn't new when they enter the ring and are usually working on a particular tactic for the fight each sparring session. The idea that you just eventually know how to fight so you can forgo sparring good opponents and just hit mitts and do drills instead is so stupid it's indefensible.
The Ajayi system is different, for good or bad. He's come through with it with Junior Saba, a bit ago, and now Anthony Yarde. And, intellectually, it's a pretty straightforward system.
Rather than you, as a fighter, figuring out the trips/traps over thousands of rounds of sparring, Ajayi's system gives you the answers on the front end, with let's say a hundred rounds to check that you've been told the truth.
You give the fighter all the triggers (what to do when you see a jab, what can you do when you throw a jab from long/mid, etc), get them as sharp on the triggers as possible, and then said fighter riffs based on what they see during the fight.
Yarde will hopefully take a couple more good fights to round out the experience to make another title run, but his career will be his career (and Ajayi has stacked the deck that he makes it out with his brains by leaving very little of him in the sparring ring).
You can do drills all of the time. But when you can't adapt to the certain variations of another human being thinking and punching you, you will have a hard time adjusting to the reality.
Throwing a left hook perfectly is great in practice,
but as soon as the moment comes when that left hook is supposed to shine life gives you touches of the opposing glove, or misses. Things can mentally turn grim pretty quickly. When you don't have confidence and when you don't hit those mental road blocks of a real world fight. Sparring isn't to practice all techniques, it's to understand the nature of what is given and you're simulating those moments and decision making processes while adjusting to all sort of possibilities and variance.
The technique is the technique; get it perfect, so that you couldn't miss it if you tried, and then take that technique into the fight.
If you throw a left hook perfect on the mitts, and then **** it up in sparring because you're working with a different style or **** sparring partner, that work won't help you in the fight.
That's why you drill with actually good/active mittwork. Get the technique perfect, and then program in all of the proper responses into muscle memory.
You're throwing a right hand, hook, right hand, and you drill all of the ways you could get to that shot; catch on the glove before, catch on the shoulder before, slip the jab before, cut the jab with your own before, etc.
Some sparring could help confirm that the programming is done properly, but you might not need 100s of rounds of sparring.
That's the chance Tunde Ajayi, Anthony Yarde, and his camp have taken, and it was almost good enough to have Yarde knock out Sergey Kovalev in the 8th round to win a world title.
Yarde was missing a touch of experience at the top level, but he wasn't really missing anything that he could've picked up getting his brains beat in during heavy sparring in his pro career.
Yep. This isn't anything new to MMA. Several MMA guys aren't sparring before fights anymore. Thats where I first heard of it & looked into it a lil more & thought hey they might be onto something. And I think they are.
Again at a certain level. I think sparring is HIGHLY beneficial to people learning combat sports up til you are a world class guy. Idk that I think its a good thing to never spar & then just go into your pro debut never knowing what its like to be hit.
That's fair. Still, he's sparred a bit; just not enough to so mean anything
You can do drills all of the time. But when you can't adapt to the certain variations of another human being thinking and punching you, you will have a hard time adjusting to the reality.
Throwing a left hook perfectly is great in practice,
but as soon as the moment comes when that left hook is supposed to shine life gives you touches of the opposing glove, or misses. Things can mentally turn grim pretty quickly. When you don't have confidence and when you don't hit those mental road blocks of a real world fight. Sparring isn't to practice all techniques, it's to understand the nature of what is given and you're simulating those moments and decision making processes while adjusting to all sort of possibilities and variance.
Jesus, I'm glad somebody said it. The idea of not sparring is absurd. I think some people speaking against it here need to remember that not all sparring is two guys going to war to prepare for a fight while shortening their careers. It rarely is. Watch actual pros spar. Good pros. They will get someone similar to their opponent in front of them so the look isn't new when they enter the ring and are usually working on a particular tactic for the fight each sparring session. The idea that you just eventually know how to fight so you can forgo sparring good opponents and just hit mitts and do drills instead is so stupid it's indefensible.
You can do drills all of the time. But when you can't adapt to the certain variations of another human being thinking and punching you, you will have a hard time adjusting to the reality.
Throwing a left hook perfectly is great in practice,
but as soon as the moment comes when that left hook is supposed to shine life gives you touches of the opposing glove, or misses. Things can mentally turn grim pretty quickly. When you don't have confidence and when you don't hit those mental road blocks of a real world fight. Sparring isn't to practice all techniques, it's to understand the nature of what is given and you're simulating those moments and decision making processes while adjusting to all sort of possibilities and variance.
Exactly, a snake oil salesman.
Yarde has zero fundamentals, looked like he learned his boxing on the punch bag in a weights room.
Kinda harsh, I think Yarde has pretty good fundamentals. May need to go back to the drawing board with some of the System 9 prep though.
System 9 has one fatal flaw...jabs.
Good point, didn't really think of that. It's all well and good hitting the pads but doesn't really teach you to use the jab to effectively set up shots when in an actual fight IMO.
Yep. This isn't anything new to MMA. Several MMA guys aren't sparring before fights anymore. Thats where I first heard of it & looked into it a lil more & thought hey they might be onto something. And I think they are.
Again at a certain level. I think sparring is HIGHLY beneficial to people learning combat sports up til you are a world class guy. Idk that I think its a good thing to never spar & then just go into your pro debut never knowing what its like to be hit.
Thing with MMA guys - pulling out from big fights with an injury during camp is a lot more common than it is compared do boxing solely because of the nature of the sport. I think if anything, they should at least have some light sparring sessions during camp.
Tunde is another con man in boxing
high dosage of test and a full time pad holder/ punching bag combined with confidence building whispering is his secret system
Yeh, i know a few lads who train at that gym, i feel sorry for them. It's a cult, with the whole 'lions in the camp' BS brainwashing impressionable young men.
Surprised the Pea**** still let Tunde work out there, if i was them i'd tell him to find another gym.
I forgot the trainer of chris algieri but he reminds me of him. A lot of hack trainers around, I think that was something emmanuel steward and roy jones have said.
Exactly, a snake oil salesman.
Yarde has zero fundamentals, looked like he learned his boxing on the punch bag in a weights room.