Tony Thompson’s Boxing Diary: Training Camp Notes

“The Tiger” Prepares For Showdown With Heavyweight Champ Wladimir Klitschko On July 12

My funny bone is slowing going, and thinking more on breaking bones! But first. lets talk about what’s going on in camp.

The last installment left off with me taking an iniquitous ass whooping from my fellow fighters (I don’t do sparring partners because you can’t get better that way). They really came to work, which was not all that fun for me, but great for what we are trying to accomplish.

So, this past week I had to respond, and let’s just say that my team felt a lot better about my performance, as did I. Now, don’t get me wrong, in no way were we pushing the panic button, but they were happy to see some of the great work that I’m capable of producing.

As a result, I was pleased to see that I was really at the point I should be in preparing for Klitschko. Sometimes this sport plays games with your mind and you have to be mentally tough to deal with not looking your best every day. I’m somewhat vain about getting my ass kicked, as are most fighters, especially the good ones.

Anyway, so I was not happy with myself a few weeks ago. But, as I have said on many occasions, I have a great team and they do a great job of keeping me sane and composed. By the way, my team consists of Tom Browner, Barry Hunter, and BB Hudson, not Buddy McGirt.

Not to say anything bad about Buddy, we will get into that next week, but we are just using his gym. Sometimes, your trainers have to pull you back so they can build you up and that can be frustrating for the fighter, sort of what happened to Big Brown in his last race. I’m talking about the horse. Get your minds out the gutter, lol. However, to my credit, I do a great job of listening and executing a plan and sometimes that plan includes rest.

So, after taking a day off in the middle of the week, I came back on Thursday and looked spry for a man of my advanced age. Now, don’t think a day off for me is like a day off for you. I still had to get my ass up and go to work, it just didn’t consist of sparring or all that damn running.

I don’t like to run unless the police are coming, or if I need to catch a plane, or of course, there’s only one pack of Oreos left on the shelf at the store. Naw, I’m just kidding…about the plane.

Therefore, I will holla back next week and I will try my best DMVERS to fight the crab grabbers that plague our lovely city. How about throwing crab grabbers in there? I haven’t heard that since the 80’s. Goodbye.