Earnie Shavers(sparring partners of)

[Brutu]

He never did win the Heavyweight Championship of the world.
But here the names of some of his sparring partners and other boxers he sparred with a least once.(source WELCOME TO THE BIG TIME)

Mac Foster(Main Street Gym,L.A -1971,
Shavers dazed Foster then he left)
Ray Anderson
Don Taylor(1971)
Dave Matthews(Rondo fight-1972)
Larry Holmes(Gleason's Gym for Ellis fight 1973)
Jeff Merrit(for Quarry fight-1973)
Roy"Tiger"Williams(for Lyle fight 1975)
Howard Smith(1977)
Michael Dokes(ca.1979)
Terry Nicopolis(for Holmes II-1979)
Calvin Langston "
Phil Brown "

[HomicideHenry]

Earnie Shavers had quite the elite on his training team didn't he? IMO, the fight with Ali was arguably his. He could have bombed Ali out in the 2nd and in the 13th rounds, in the end, Ali won a split decision over the man he dubbed 'The Acorn'. He had Ali hurt, thats got to count for something, and it was only Ali's last second flurries that "won" him the rounds, least imo.

Had he been in any other era, he more than likely would have been champion.

[jaclem2]

..jeff merrit was told when he was a sparring partner not to hit shavers on the chin. merrit then hit him on the chin and broke his jaw.

don't recall what match shavers was training for..but i think it was a fight with ron stander. merrit got the match instead...and he scored a kayo..I was there and saw it. i thought merrit was going to go far..but problems outside the ring kept him from doing so.

[BoxBuzz]

I imagine Ernie didn't have much to say after that.


Ok...that was a cheap shot, and I took it anyway. Thankfully Ernie or his crew will never be able to track me down and force me to face the consequences of such a shoddy sense of humor....as long as I keep moving from one town to another.

[Counter-puncher]

..jeff merrit was told when he was a sparring partner not to hit shavers on the chin. merrit then hit him on the chin and broke his jaw.

don't recall what match shavers was training for..but i think it was a fight with ron stander. merrit got the match instead...and he scored a kayo..I was there and saw it. i thought merrit was going to go far..but problems outside the ring kept him from doing so.

'Candy Slim' Merrritt, he of the easily-pleased disposition:

'All I need is a hit of heroin, a couple of bitches on the street, and a can of tuna'

[Brutu]

Jeff Merrit broke Shavers jaw when Shavers was originally training for the fight with Jerry Quarry in 1973,they had to post pone that fight for a few months of course.
Reportly Merrit beat up on Shavers cause Shavers had been beating up on excessivly just after Merrit was released from prison.

[Brutu]

Also according to Earnie Shavers in his autobiography.
He and Muhammad Ali had never once sparred before their 1977 fight.
That article which appeared in newspapers in 1973
that Ali had thrown Shavers out of Deer Lake camp because he agreed to go 5 lazy rounds with Ali then floored him in the third before being thrown out was
bs,probably reported to newspapers by Don King to advance Shavers career,because he was his manager then.

[jaclem2]

....bruto - thanks for the clarification. the shavers auto bio is good and i haven't looked at it for a while but now i'll get it out again. one of the things i remember most is how much money shavers spent on the house he built....lots of stuff made out of gold.

[bollox]

..jeff merrit was told when he was a sparring partner not to hit shavers on the chin. merrit then hit him on the chin and broke his jaw.

don't recall what match shavers was training for..but i think it was a fight with ron stander. merrit got the match instead...and he scored a kayo..I was there and saw it. i thought merrit was going to go far..but problems outside the ring kept him from doing so.

Hope you don't mind me asking but.......how old are you, son?

[jaclem2]

..old enough to have forgotten more about boxing than just about everybody here will ever know...in fact i've forgotten more about boxing than I'LL ever know again... DD :geek2:

[Brutu]

While training for the fight with Muhammad Ali in September 1977.
Shavers did a public exhibition with
LeRoy Diggs and Cookie Wallace.

[ThatOne]

Also according to Earnie Shavers in his autobiography.
He and Muhammad Ali had never once sparred before their 1977 fight.
That article which appeared in newspapers in 1973
that Ali had thrown Shavers out of Deer Lake camp because he agreed to go 5 lazy rounds with Ali then floored him in the third before being thrown out was
bs,probably reported to newspapers by Don King to advance Shavers career,because he was his manager then.

I'm confused.

" He (Ali) was a very good friend.Long before I fought Ali , he had invited me to his training camp in 1973 to train for the Jimmy Ellis fight.And he told me with other guys how to fight them..."

-Earnie Shavers from "Facing Ali."

[HomicideHenry]

Gym stories are almost bigger myths than what some actual fights turn out themselves.

[ThatOne]

Gym stories are almost bigger myths than what some actual fights turn out themselves.

Ali was not a good gym fighter and said he saw no need to beat up guys who were making $50.00 a day. That says a lot about his character .

[HomicideHenry]

Before his rematch with Bugner, Ali told a reporter that sparring partners were 'the lowest form of life', a comment that his sparring partner Tony Doyle heard. Ali went to spar with Doyle for the press, and immediately Doyle jumped Ali and hit him with three consecutive right hooks. Ali was shocked, and so was the press---because Doyle previously was kayoed by Bugner in quick fashion.

[Brutu]

Also according to Earnie Shavers in his autobiography.
He and Muhammad Ali had never once sparred before their 1977 fight.
That article which appeared in newspapers in 1973
that Ali had thrown Shavers out of Deer Lake camp because he agreed to go 5 lazy rounds with Ali then floored him in the third before being thrown out was
bs,probably reported to newspapers by Don King to advance Shavers career,because he was his manager then.

I'm confused.

" He (Ali) was a very good friend.Long before I fought Ali , he had invited me to his training camp in 1973 to train for the Jimmy Ellis fight.And he told me with other guys how to fight them..."

-Earnie Shavers from "Facing Ali."

[Brutu]

Also according to Earnie Shavers in his autobiography.
He and Muhammad Ali had never once sparred before their 1977 fight.
That article which appeared in newspapers in 1973
that Ali had thrown Shavers out of Deer Lake camp because he agreed to go 5 lazy rounds with Ali then floored him in the third before being thrown out was
bs,probably reported to newspapers by Don King to advance Shavers career,because he was his manager then.

I'm confused.

" He (Ali) was a very good friend.Long before I fought Ali , he had invited me to his training camp in 1973 to train for the Jimmy Ellis fight.And he told me with other guys how to fight them..."

-Earnie Shavers from "Facing Ali."

I think he meant that Ali explained verbally how to defeat Ellis.
Same thing when Shavers went to Philadelphia to fight Jimmy Young,at the gym there Frazier gave Shavers some tips
how to defeat Jimmy Young.I could be wrong but I dont think Frazier actually sparred with Shavers to show him.

[John Galt]

There are sparring stories about every boxer. Nobody is at their best everyday and what happens in sparring usually doesn't mean much. I was looking at an old Boxing and Wrestling (August 1955) magazine recently. There was a story (pp62) that Bert Whitehurst had dropped Rocky Marciano in sparring and that Al Weil had thrown Whitehurst out of camp. Who knows if it is true?

There are stories about Ali, Tyson, Liston, practically every boxer being beat up or dropped in sparring. Some of them are probably true. Those guys couldn't have been at the top of their game everyday, and even if they were they were going to occasionally be off balance or get caught. It doesn't mean much, everybody has "off" days.

[HomicideHenry]

There are sparring stories about every boxer. Nobody is at their best everyday and what happens in sparring usually doesn't mean much. I was looking at an old Boxing and Wrestling (August 1955) magazine recently. There was a story (pp62) that Bert Whitehurst had dropped Rocky Marciano in sparring and that Al Weil had thrown Whitehurst out of camp. Who knows if it is true?

There are stories about Ali, Tyson, Liston, practically every boxer being beat up or dropped in sparring. Some of them are probably true. Those guys couldn't have been at the top of their game everyday, and even if they were they were going to occasionally be off balance or get caught. It doesn't mean much, everybody has "off" days.

Marciano also got his nose busted by Tommy Harrison in sparring.

My favorite Marciano sparring story, though, was him hitting Tommy 'Hurricane' Jackson so hard to the body that Jackson vomited on the spot.

[Brutu]

There are sparring stories about every boxer. Nobody is at their best everyday and what happens in sparring usually doesn't mean much. I was looking at an old Boxing and Wrestling (August 1955) magazine recently. There was a story (pp62) that Bert Whitehurst had dropped Rocky Marciano in sparring and that Al Weil had thrown Whitehurst out of camp. Who knows if it is true?

There are stories about Ali, Tyson, Liston, practically every boxer being beat up or dropped in sparring. Some of them are probably true. Those guys couldn't have been at the top of their game everyday, and even if they were they were going to occasionally be off balance or get caught. It doesn't mean much, everybody has "off" days.

That may have been when Marciano was in California preparing to fight Don Cockell in 1955.
Marciano was losing interest in boxing and couldnt really get himself up for that fight,reportly a sparring partner knock him down then.

Reportly Sonny Liston was knocked out by Mac Foster in a gym while preparing to fight Henry Clark in 1968.

[granberry]

Jimmy Young was a sparring partner for Shavers. Or at least he seemed to think so when he talked to me about the fighters he worked as a sparring partner for..

But I defer to the exalted expert posters here, who have never had the slightest contact with boxing--and never will.

[Brutu]

Whom it was that Shavers sparred with for the rescheduled match with Quarry
for December 1973.
Shavers worked out with Ray Anderson a lot around that time.
Maybe its someone else on the list I tried to compile a few years ago.

[Bricks]

Im sure goodnight urine is somewhere , unable to post on this thread, seething about how he still feels he could take a 60 something Shavers"

[gregor]

I understood he sparred once with Stallone preparing for Rocky, so you should include also Rocky here

[Nile4000]

Shavers and Mac Foster should've fought for real.