Yusaf Mack UPDATE!

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Originally Posted by amat

...I wonder what Tandy thinks when he reads this. So funny soooo funny.

Mack has some flaws though, I wish he would get a more consistent jab or at least a more commited jab. I think he's better behind it. He goes defensive for to long at a time, even when he's slipping shots and looking for counters underneath, it still looks bad and made for Henry winning a lot of those rounds even when he wasn't even landing cleanly. I think Henry outpunched him by a couple hundred and with any sort of jab that should never happen. Also wish he would use his feet a bit more, he got flatfooted a lot and with no jab just allowed to Henry to close the distance easily, even with the success of Mack's chopping right he would have been better served just firing it from outside where Henry has virtually no chance and just turning him.

Like I thought before the fight Mack was the more talented it was just a matter of the bad habits he has and them being all wrong for Mack, it made for a close fight and what has to be looked at as a good win over a Ring rated contender. Just lots of work to do.

Good luck to him though and thanks John and Barron for giving those updates on the forum, pretty cool stuff :cool:

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I think that is part of the strategy, being aware of his stamina issues is a mature thing to implement.

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Originally Posted by killersheep

I think that is part of the strategy, being aware of his stamina issues is a mature thing to implement.

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I agree. Having only had limited sparring that will severely hamper your fighting endurance, and knowing how to manage that, plus implementing it effectively...is a tactically smart thing to do.

If Yusaf can somehow find the right means to fight consistantly as he did the first 6 rounds...having the power in his shots I believe he does, then he is going to be tough to beat when that all comes together, and by most anyone.

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Originally Posted by Youngblood

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Originally Posted by killersheep

I think that is part of the strategy, being aware of his stamina issues is a mature thing to implement.

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I agree. Having only had limited sparring that will severely hamper your fighting endurance, and knowing how to manage that, plus implementing it effectively...is a tactically smart thing to do.

If Yusaf can somehow find the right means to fight consistantly as he did the first 6 rounds...having the power in his shots I believe he does, then he is going to be tough to beat when that all comes together, and by most anyone.

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I disagree that not sparring will severly hamper your endurance. I used to use sparring to work on things, try things out. Running (& I hated it) always did wonders! I agree sparring has its benefits but it is not the be all & end all of endurance training!

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Originally Posted by Galaxy

I disagree that not sparring will severly hamper your endurance. I used to use sparring to work on things, try things out. Running (& I hated it) always did wonders! I agree sparring has its benefits but it is not the be all & end all of endurance training!

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I'm talking fighting endurance, as clearly stated. I've been in the situation where my cardio was off the hook, but for a month or so had no sparring...and was surprised to find it tougher then I expected when going through the ropes for a spar after a layoff.

I will agree that it depends on the type of sparring probably and intensity of it. We tend to spar 3 times a week and usually no less then 9 rounds per session...sometimes as much as 12-15. More if we are doing a technical spars and stopping, going, working on form, and less if it is intense.

There is no good supplement for sparring to prepare for a fight, IMO.

Sparring has a huge effect, whoever says otherwise is an idiot. It is the same as any other sport, if you don't play you will not be match fit. You can take a marathon runner who can run 26 miles in sub 2hrs 30 and he will not last very long, it's not because he is unfit. A soccer player can do as much gym work as he wants but without playing he is not the same.

Getting hit, then mental side, steadying your adrenaline burn, timing, there are so many things. I am not saying sparring is all you need to do of course it's not, you need a good mix, if you leave out something you are not the finished article. Yusaf worked his ass off in the gym, he did more cardio than ever, he did tons hard high altitude running with mixed sprints, etc, he also has problems with breathing through his nose, so the gaping mouth also gives the sign of him being more tired than he actually is, something that again will be worked on we are hoping it is not a medical problem. But without good sparring 12 rounds is a long time.

But hey at the end of the day there is still tons of room for improvement, the boy has done well, tell me he is the same fighter that lost to Berrio or Andrade, it ain;t all going to change over night, he has boxing since he was 7 years old, a lot of the problems are deep routed, you work on things in the gym but the old mistakes still come back in the height of battle.

Anyways if his elbow didn't pop out in the 2nd round, he would have been jabbing better and putting the left hook behind the right hands and then it might have been an earlier night. The pain of that also effected his fitness, anyways no excuses, we will continue to work and things will continue to improve, next camp with sparring you will see the difference.

If you take someone from another sport & put them in the ring of course they are going to react differently to a pro its just logical as they do not train for that sort of thing.

When I fought I used sparring to work on certain tactics & timing, work it out on the pads 1st then into sparring.

I used to spar heaps as a kid following my brother to the gym but it seemed to me that you could get set in that sort of mind frame.

To call someone an idiot just because you disagree with there opinion is just disrespectful. My brother was one of NZ's best ever lightweights & I fought for the commonwealth light-welterweight title & I can tell you we both did very little sparring!

But your entitled to your opinion & thats fine, just as I'm entitled to mine...

I wasn't calling you an idiot buddy, my apologies if it came out like that. Maybe with top level sparring you might have turned those already great achievements even higher, I have been coaching for twelve years and have guided a number of people though top level fights, sometimes one part of the equation was missing through injury or circumstances, the result was never as good as what it could have been.

Example before I coached Yusaf Mack when he fought Berrio, he was sparring every other day against a high level guys but he gassed out as he was not running. He thought he was training hard but he didn't have the right mix.

I spar with my guys a lot, not so much anymore through injuries but if I went a few week with no sparring, even though I was still training I really noticed the difference, sparring controls adrenaline release, when you get hit your body releases it, the thrill of a fight, the bodies natural reactions to circumstances. Adrenaline is the main cause of guys gassing out, it burns you up, (Nerves, crowd, the fight, getting hit...etc are all to do with adrenaline release) Sparring not only increases your sharpness (So you land with more punches as missing is twice as tiring) but it helps you control your adrenaline. You get a guy who has never boxed in a ring before, he knows the basics and is fit, will always gas out. It takes weeks to eventually get used to it. Your body learns to deal with the release and control it. Sparring even if it is light sparring helps you relax and your body adapt. It is amazing how quickly it forgets, no matter how long you have been doing it or at what level.

Also the nerves of knowing that your preparations haven't gone exactly to plan can also take a lot out of you.

At the end of the day he completed the 12 rounds and won so I am not making excuses, i am just saying if he had sparring he would have been a lot better.

No harm no foul buddy!

My 3rd to last fight was brutal but back in the day (70's) MRI scans were unheard off. 4 months later I had my last fight & the ref stopped things in the 10th moments later I collapsed in the ring & had to have a blood clot removed. So I feel the damaged had already been done & no amount of sparring would have changed things by that point.

I remember my brother asking what is wrong with me when we sparred a couple rounds preparing for that last fight. I couldn't place it but something just didn't feel right. I though I must have been catching a cold.

Back then we fought a lot more regularly I turned pro in April 1970 & my last fight was in September 1972. In that time I fought 23 times with an overall record of 21-2 (17)

I agree with what your saying about sparring & as I said I used to spar all the time as a youngster & 1st starting out but as I said we fought more regularly back then so sparring was not as necessarily important as conditioning was for us.

Yeah things were different back then, you guys were fighting every few weeks, when you only fight 3 times a year that's when the sparring becomes important.

I had 126 am fights and was sometimes fighting twice a week and then the sparring wasn't as important, not that it is at the same level as fighting 12 rounds.

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Originally Posted by jmbtandy

Yeah things were different back then, you guys were fighting every few weeks, when you only fight 3 times a year that's when the sparring becomes important.

I had 126 am fights and was sometimes fighting twice a week and then the sparring wasn't as important, not that it is at the same level as fighting 12 rounds.

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I only saw one serious flaw in his game after I heard he was hurt,we can talk about that privately though.
Though when I didnt know he was hurt,he was scaring the hell out of me in the later rounds.