Fighters’ journeys

[coghaugen11]

Always love the journeys

From Widnes, 4 rounds, not even advertised on the poster; to the MGM v Mayweather with thousands of travelling Mancs!


How about this one, lads;

-20K at MSG at 18 after two years total boxing
-Three years later 40 people at Copthorne golf club in Sussex (ref Larry O’Connell)
-To 40+K at Old Trafford (ref Larry O’Connell)


(Post-fight swag after seeing opponent in corner)


(Post-fight swag after seeing opponent in corner)

[Steveh583]

Take what ever medicines they tell you to. I’m sure I speak for the rest of boxrec when I wish u every success in your ongoing struggle.

[coghaugen11]

Take what ever medicines they tell you to. I’m sure I speak for the rest of boxrec when I wish u every success in your ongoing struggle.

SUNDAY SCHOOL

Have you been today, Steve?

[Jimmy2020]

Who is the 20k ar MSG after two years total boxing?

[coghaugen11]

Who is the 20k ar MSG after two years total boxing?

Eubank in the ‘85 Gloves semi finals. 2-minute rounds that year because it wasn’t just the final but the semi finals of the open classes. He first started boxing two years before that! That’s mad.

[Jimmy2020]

It is to be fair.

[coghaugen11]

It is to be fair.

Never heard anything like it. Thrown in the deep end is an understatement. His 11th amateur fight ever was vs 97-1 Mark Breland.

[Wales]

I’m sure Deyontay Wilder first walked into a gym in 2005. 18 months later he won National golden gloves and US championship.
Less than 3 years after stepping into the gym he won Olympic bronze medal.

In contrast look at somebody like Vassily Jirov. Started boxing at 11. Had around 250 amateur fights winning multiple medals including Olympic gold and Val Baker trophy.
As a young amateur Jirov was put through some pretty brutal training ....

“In the gym we have a long hallway on the first floor,” said Jirov, estimating the length to be around 100 meters. “It was a very big building. I was standing at the end of the hallway with the German shepherd dog five-feet behind me.

“They would let the dog go as I started to run. At the end of the hallway was a door and if I make it through the door before the dog attacked me, the door would be closed behind me. If not, I had to fight off the dog. I have a rope in my hand so I could put it in the dog’s mouth so it would not bite me too much.”

Amazingly, the coach wanted to use a leopard but settled on the lesser of two evils because they didn’t have one.

Apachinsky had different ideas on how to build endurance. He liked to take his fighters out to the middle of a lake and let them swim five or six miles back to shore.

“It took me three or four hours to swim,” Jirov recalled.
One of the boxers said he wanted to be a champion like me. My coach said, ‘OK’ and took him to the lake with me and dropped us in the lake and said, ‘swim’.

“He swam okay (at first) and then said, ‘I’m drowning and tired. I can’t do anymore!’ My coach said, ‘Nope, you want to be like Vassiliy, you have to finish swimming’ and left in the boat. I had to swim back with him to make sure he didn’t drown. When we got back to the shore, he started cussing and said he would never be back. He left and I never saw him again.”

[coghaugen11]

You had to be hard as nails and wired a certain way to be a first choice Eastern European am.







Eubank came up against Breland after just 1yr of boxing training, and did famously well early in a chess jab match by accounts.

[coghaugen11]

The 76/84/88 US amateurs were planets better than the 00/04/08/12/16 teams.

[knockout]

Ray Mercer one of my favourite fast track stories !

Olympic gold after 5 years training after starting boxing in his twenties.

Was a cheapened gold with the absence of Savon but an amazing feat nonetheless

[coghaugen11]

Ray Mercer one of my favourite fast track stories !

Olympic gold after 5 years training after starting boxing in his twenties.

Was a cheapened gold with the absence of Savon but an amazing feat nonetheless

That is insane. And that guy beat Lennox Lewis for me.

[Wales]

The 76/84/88 US amateurs were planets better than the 00/04/08/12/16 teams.

True. And there’s a few reasons that (over time) led to that in my opinion.
US got rid of their centralised boxing programme for Olympians. So instead of the Olympic hopefuls going to a specific gym with handpicked coaches they remained in their home gyms. Surely the top 3 in every weight all training at a specialised central gym with handpicked top trainers would be of benefit . I think Over years of not having this environment the standard dropped.
Other sports became more attractive to young American athletes in the US too. In the 70s for example the NFL was still only just accepting black players. By 1970s the numbers of African Americans in NFL had exploded compared to the 60s but was still only Something like 30% of NFL players that were African American compared to something like 75% in mid 90s to now. Far more young sportsmen look at a career in Football over boxing, infact quite a few boxers are failed footballers.
Look at the role models young African Americans had back then. Likes of SRR, Ali, Liston, foreman etc... all competed in a sport where race was irrelevant and inspired others. By Late 70s into mid 80s likes of magic Johnson and Michael Jordan exploded onto basketball scene which along with NFL overtook boxing as a sport. Can’t underestimate how big a sport boxing was, then sports like NFL and Basketball completely eclipsed it.
Competition also became tougher. Countries like Ukraine and Khazakstan joined the party priding themselves on their amateur boxing. Countries like the U.K. started having a robust and heavily funded boxing programme - I think UK won more golds since the year 2000 than we did in the last 100 years. Also let’s not forget 28 countries boycotted the Olympics in 76, and both Russia and Cuba boycotted the games in ‘84

[coghaugen11]

TV. It was on free TV like ABC, NBC, TBS. There was a seemingly never-ending post-Ali conveyor belt (in UK too) where young black boys wanted to be Ali, with inner city gyms on every street corner rammed to rafters IE more talent pool

Now youngsters grow up not knowing what boxing is, but MMA/UFC/NBA/NFL, and PT’ing

[Wales]

MMA is getting more and more popular around here too but we still Get kids coming into our gym who have been training at a “everything under one roof” MMA gym and say...

“I Just wanna come here to improve my striking”

“It’s called boxing here sunshine. Striking is what the miners did”

[Wales]

Now youngsters grow up not knowing what boxing is, but MMA/UFC

Can understand kids liking UFC when the best fight the best consistently whilst boxing is drowned in politics and promotional gameplay.

Fights like AJ Fury or Pacquiao Mayweather would’ve happened immediately in the UFC . Rarity for best fighting the best in boxing

[bennie]

Ray Mercer one of my favourite fast track stories !

Olympic gold after 5 years training after starting boxing in his twenties.

Was a cheapened gold with the absence of Savon but an amazing feat nonetheless

Mercer stopped every one of his opponents in the Games.

[coghaugen11]

Now youngsters grow up not knowing what boxing is, but MMA/UFC

Can understand kids liking UFC when the best fight the best consistently whilst boxing is drowned in politics and promotional gameplay.

Fights like AJ Fury or Pacquiao Mayweather would’ve happened immediately in the UFC . Rarity for best fighting the best in boxing

But the huge waits between fights = more tickets sold and more PPV’s sold. The general public think a a boxing match happens once every year or two - it does for most fighters, that’s how inactive they are now.

[knockout]

Ray Mercer one of my favourite fast track stories !

Olympic gold after 5 years training after starting boxing in his twenties.

Was a cheapened gold with the absence of Savon but an amazing feat nonetheless

Mercer stopped every one of his opponents in the Games.

Yes that is impressive.

[Boxerbeetle]

Now youngsters grow up not knowing what boxing is, but MMA/UFC/NBA/NFL, and PT’ing

I just spent about 5 minutes wondering why I’d never heard of a sport called ‘Pting’ and was thinking it was a strange name, only just realised what you meant