Sparring Stories

[joseph5620]

Eric Morales sparring with Edwin Valero







Evander Holyfield sprring with David Tua for the first Tyson fight.

[The Surgeon]

I heard Tyson used to give Jimmy Young regular beatings in the early 80's

[slicksouthpaw16]

Thomas Hearns and Mark Breland sparring



I once read that Thomas Hearns sparred with Marlon Starling for the fight with Leonard and broke Starlings jaw.

That was the first time I've seen that, thanks for posting it. Anyone know what year that was? Hearns was scary as hell. There he is fighting someone just as tall as he is (and a brilliant boxer) and hes out jabbing him and beating him to the punch without that much effort. I'm not sure if I've seen anyone technically as good as him.

[slicksouthpaw16]

I'm already guessing that everyone already knows about the hell that McCall gave Tyson in sparring. I also remember reading that he dropped him. I would have loved to seen them in an actual fight.

[slicksouthpaw16]

Short clip of Tyson vs McCall

[slicksouthpaw16]

Tommy Hearns and Gerald McCellan

[VIPrice]

Edwin Valero gave De La Hoya a black eye sparring in preparation for pacquiao, and was kicked out.

[Dynamite76]

Marlon Starling giving Thomas Hearns fits before the broken jaw.
Curtis Parker giving Qawi, Hearns, and Spinks problems in Philly.
Mitch Green sparred with Big John Tate when he was an amateur, but don't know how it went.
Greg Page sparring with Ali at 16.
The infamous Ayala jr-Cuevas spar, though some say it didn't happen.

[QueensburyRules]

- -It was Duran, not Cuevas and reportedly 15 yr old Tony manhandled him.

Of course Duran coming into training camp was always terribly out of shape. How he could have such a great career is near miraculous. Glad to see he finally pared down from his 250 lb retirement wt to around 170-180.

Spadafora/Floyd session pure gold with Floyd pure oaf being toyed with.

[smeck]

Sparring ain't just for boxers, right?

How about BOB DYLAN sparring with Bruce "Mouse" Strauss and...GINA GERSHON?

"In the middle period of his career, he trained pretty seriously with the middleweight Bruce “Mouse” Strauss, whom he called his “professional opponent.”

“Mouse could walk on his hands across a football field,” Dylan said. “He taught me the pugilistic rudiments back a while ago, maybe 20 or 30 years.” The pair got into a number of vigorous sparring sessions over the years.

Dylan wasn’t afraid to hit hard. And he wasn’t, as Gina Gershon discovered, afraid to take a punch. As she told Interview Magazine, the music icon somehow became one of her sparring partners when she was preparing for the 1996 cult classic Bound. And she decked him.

“One time he gave me a little jab in the face, and since I’d told him not to do that, of course I went insane and hit him really hard,” Gershon said. “He did go down, and I almost started to cry, thinking ‘Oh my God, I’m the jerk who broke Bob Dylan’s jaw.’”

But Dylan was fine. “He just said ‘Oh no, I need a good woman to kick my ass every now and then.’”

Dylan also met Jack Dempsey once, and Ali. Of course he sang about "Clay," Davey Moore and Hurricane Carter. The quotes above, and there's more, are at:

http://fightland.vice.com/blog/cassi...lan-and-boxing