Comments Thread For: Frank Warren To Have Serious Conversation With Yarde, Coach

[Verus]

In every field, the key to mastering the craft is time on task, whether it is brain surgery, weight lifting, basketball, throwing the discuss, mathematics, or running marathons. Time on task is the main ingredient. Preparing for a boxing match without sparring is like a basketball player shooting 3 point shots in a game with ever shooting in practice.

[Scipio2009]

The best possible training for skills and endurance for boxing is sparring. The reason Floyd never faded in a fight? Extreme sparring. I used to wrestle in High School. It didn't matter how many miles I could run. How much weight I could lift. The best possible training for wrestling was wrestling. It's just a fact. Same with Boxing. Sparring. Yarde needs it.

Floyd never faded in a fight because he would show up to his gym, put on his gear, and run through three-hour training sessions without nary the thought of a break.

Floyd could spar the way he sparred (the public basically only got to see the Spadafora spar and his last spar during the press availability) because he knew that he'd already put the work in, his uncle had him ready and razor sharp, and he had no questions about his conditioning so he could basically keep the pressure on you until you fell apart.

Punch perfect technique and unquestioned conditioning (as to not lose focus when fatigue would set in).

The punch system is a bit different, but Floyd's template is why this might work for Yarde/Ajayi.

Open wrestling may have helped you train; I have no idea how good you were, but let's leave that alone.

Weigh your open wrestling (just to wrestle) against the kid somewhere who is simply drilling non-stop; 100 right leg takedowns, 100 left leg takedowns, 100 double leg takedowns, 100 sweeps from the half under/over, 100 sprawls to stuff the takedown, with a 5 mile run after that for conditioning. Every day.

You may pick up things along the way just wrestling, but I'd bet that the kid that has drilled the basics, every day, with good reps in camp, kicks the teeth in of the kid who "just wrestles" (unless the kid that "just wrestles" is a God-gifted talent and the reps kid just isn't)

[Scipio2009]

Wrong. Pads are a poor substitute for sparring

In less than 40 fights, amateur or pro, limited sparring and pads got Anthony Yarde to the point that he's unquestionably a top 25 light heavyweight fighter who was a few moments of damage away from beating a fading Sergey Kovalev.

Time will tell how far up that list Yarde goes, but he's done pretty well for himself with his "poor substitute for sparring".

[Scipio2009]

You are not putting this in perspective: boxing is over 100 years old. Literally thousands champions were forged through training regimens, which have one thing in common - sparring. I understand the contrarian's philosophy and even would agree that once in a while we need to shake up the foundation to see if it is still the right one. But you need to know where to shake the foundation and then validate the shake up. Even if Tunde's tactics was validated that fight (and it was so not), I would still want to see more evidence that this approach isn't a fluke. When you are the only one not walking in the same direction as everyone else that might make you a genius, a luminary, an explorer. It can also make you an idiot. For now, I'd go with the evidence pointing to Tunde being an idiot.

I'm not saying that Ajayi's way is right or the way I'd guide along a kid I thought could fight.

I'm simply saying that dismissing Ajayi's thinking is a mistake.

Boxing is over 100 years old; still boxers used to not drink water during training, strength and conditioning programs are at most 30 years old, and folks still hold to the "train in isolation" and "women weaken legs" axioms (though ****ing within days of a fight is ******, because there is an energy dump from peak performance that you do feel for 4-5 days).

Boxing isn't infallible.

Tunde Ajayi and Anthony Yarde are taking this leap together, after seeing examples like Mayweather's to give their thinking some merit, so we'll see.

I don't know what he was doing beforehand, or how well Warren pays, but in 5 years, Yarde was able to make something of himself, earn a bit of money, and do it without taking too much damage so far.

If it doesn't work, than it doesn't work; move along. If it does work, you've opened up the path for high school/college athletes to be more inclined to try at 175/200/heavyweight, while also putting down a viable data point that likely won't eliminate sparring, but would give coaches evidence ready to justify going from three sparring days a week down to 2, etc.

[Scipio2009]

In every field, the key to mastering the craft is time on task, whether it is brain surgery, weight lifting, basketball, throwing the discuss, mathematics, or running marathons. Time on task is the main ingredient. Preparing for a boxing match without sparring is like a basketball player shooting 3 point shots in a game with ever shooting in practice.

That's a mistake, and a gross one at that.

Ajayi's system pulled near all of the sparring, but that's it; you still run/S&C, you still work the bags, still work the mitts, and you still drill.


It's basically the kid with talent in some small town with no real run near him, but who has the motivation/interest, a nice set of basketballs, and a good court to work with, who does dribbling drills, shooting drills, and shoots around every day.

You may not have an NBA-ready player, but you've got something you can work with, and if that kid actually had NBA-level talent, you can likely get that kid later and still turn them into something.

Anthony Yarde was basically a 25-year old novice boxer likely walking around at 200+lbs.

Could you imagine the amount of headshots he would've had to take had he sparred his way from novice to world title challenger in 4 years? Lol

[wrecksracer]

Floyd never faded in a fight because he would show up to his gym, put on his gear, and run through three-hour training sessions without nary the thought of a break.

Floyd could spar the way he sparred (the public basically only got to see the Spadafora spar and his last spar during the press availability) because he knew that he'd already put the work in, his uncle had him ready and razor sharp, and he had no questions about his conditioning so he could basically keep the pressure on you until you fell apart.

Punch perfect technique and unquestioned conditioning (as to not lose focus when fatigue would set in).

The punch system is a bit different, but Floyd's template is why this might work for Yarde/Ajayi.

Open wrestling may have helped you train; I have no idea how good you were, but let's leave that alone.

Weigh your open wrestling (just to wrestle) against the kid somewhere who is simply drilling non-stop; 100 right leg takedowns, 100 left leg takedowns, 100 double leg takedowns, 100 sweeps from the half under/over, 100 sprawls to stuff the takedown, with a 5 mile run after that for conditioning. Every day.

You may pick up things along the way just wrestling, but I'd bet that the kid that has drilled the basics, every day, with good reps in camp, kicks the teeth in of the kid who "just wrestles" (unless the kid that "just wrestles" is a God-gifted talent and the reps kid just isn't)

I disagree, and most experts will tell you that sparring is crucial. Yarde gassed. Doing drills and running laps isn't going to help him. Lifting weights, either. This guy needs to go to Kronk where they do real sparring.

[alexjust]

I'm not saying that Ajayi's way is right or the way I'd guide along a kid I thought could fight.

I'm simply saying that dismissing Ajayi's thinking is a mistake.

Boxing is over 100 years old; still boxers used to not drink water during training, strength and conditioning programs are at most 30 years old, and folks still hold to the "train in isolation" and "women weaken legs" axioms (though ****ing within days of a fight is ******, because there is an energy dump from peak performance that you do feel for 4-5 days).

Boxing isn't infallible.

Tunde Ajayi and Anthony Yarde are taking this leap together, after seeing examples like Mayweather's to give their thinking some merit, so we'll see.

I don't know what he was doing beforehand, or how well Warren pays, but in 5 years, Yarde was able to make something of himself, earn a bit of money, and do it without taking too much damage so far.

If it doesn't work, than it doesn't work; move along. If it does work, you've opened up the path for high school/college athletes to be more inclined to try at 175/200/heavyweight, while also putting down a viable data point that likely won't eliminate sparring, but would give coaches evidence ready to justify going from three sparring days a week down to 2, etc.

We are on the same page with being open minded, but you can't be contrarian for the sake of it. So far, the way the fight progressed showed that Yarde's stamina was poor. Why? If Ajay 100% knows why and it is not attributable to lack of sparring - then carry on without sparring, but is there a way to be 100% sure that it wasn't sparring? I doubt it. Therefore - add it into the mix to see if it helps. If it doesn't - add other things, but don't dismiss the most fundamental thing that was employed by every single champion, former and current. If you see the objective evidence of benefit of sparring vs no sparring, please point it out. And if not, why wouldn't you dismiss Ajay's training regimen? Because he is going against the flow? Its like a conspiracy theory that US has never ended on the Moon - sounds cool, but a dud. So is Ajay's philosophy.

[Scipio2009]

I disagree, and most experts will tell you that sparring is crucial. Yarde gassed. Doing drills and running laps isn't going to help him. Lifting weights, either. This guy needs to go to Kronk where they do real sparring.

James Toney sparred (some would say sparred almost exclusively) to get ready for his fights, and look where he's at now.

Ajayi's trying a different way

[Scipio2009]

We are on the same page with being open minded, but you can't be contrarian for the sake of it. So far, the way the fight progressed showed that Yarde's stamina was poor. Why? If Ajay 100% knows why and it is not attributable to lack of sparring - then carry on without sparring, but is there a way to be 100% sure that it wasn't sparring? I doubt it. Therefore - add it into the mix to see if it helps. If it doesn't - add other things, but don't dismiss the most fundamental thing that was employed by every single champion, former and current. If you see the objective evidence of benefit of sparring vs no sparring, please point it out. And if not, why wouldn't you dismiss Ajay's training regimen? Because he is going against the flow? Its like a conspiracy theory that US has never ended on the Moon - sounds cool, but a dud. So is Ajay's philosophy.

Ajayi/Yarde have a thesis that they're testing out; the benefit/cost of sparring is too high to leave all that fight/damage in the gym, so he's minimizing it.

And, in five years, he's guided Yarde to being a top 25 light heavyweight.

Doubt he'll decide to now add taking practice shots to the head, but what do I know

[wrecksracer]

James Toney sparred (some would say sparred almost exclusively) to get ready for his fights, and look where he's at now.

Ajayi's trying a different way

Toney is 10 times the fighter Yarde will ever be.