Why Dont Fighters Train This Hard Anymore?

[Master]

Can read it now. Tyson lived eat and breathed boxing. He was a sponge.

[El Kabong]

Can read it now. Tyson lived eat and breathed boxing. He was a sponge.

Well yeah and he also had a full support system with Cus et al allowing Mike to be able to LIVE boxing not just train, but LIVE it....Tyson didn't have to put a roof over his own head, he didn't have to put food on the table, he didn't have to work a job.....not many people are able to do that, it's a privilege to be able to focus 100% on training and nothing else.

Think about someone like Glen Johnson who wasn't even a full time boxer" until he fought Roy Jones Jr....up until that point he had to work a job to finance his life AND box. Look at James J. Braddock, dude had to rough it through the Great Depression working odd jobs AND box.

Mike Tyson had an extremely rough childhood, but his upbringing around Cus was for a boxer Heaven on Earth....could you imagine it? You wake up, you train, you feed your body, you feed your mind, Cus was not only a great trainer but a boxing historian as well so it was just nothing but boxing all day every day. Maybe that doesn't work for everyone, but for somebody hungry to learn and achieve it was the perfect setting.

[greynotsoold]

The only reason you would have a guy training 10-14 hours a day, six days a week, would be to keep him chronically exhausted; I've seen Mexican trainers, usually father's, do this if the fighter is running after women. It also helps keep a guy out of trouble if you keep an eye on him all day and put him to bed dead tired.

If that is an accurate depiction of his training, I'm guessing they were trying to keep a potential cash cow out of trouble.

[Master]

The only reason you would have a guy training 10-14 hours a day, six days a week, would be to keep him chronically exhausted; I've seen Mexican trainers, usually father's, do this if the fighter is running after women. It also helps keep a guy out of trouble if you keep an eye on him all day and put him to bed dead tired.

If that is an accurate depiction of his training, I'm guessing they were trying to keep a potential cash cow out of trouble.

Tyson was always getting into trouble so it could be the reason why he had an intense regime

[Spicoli]

Say what we want about Mike but the man was surrounded by foundation, routine and experience. Always like to hear a fighter talking up and learning previous eras and great or even not so great boxers of days gone by. That's something you don't see much these days and in the peripherals it had to spur Mike on a bit.

[Gray Lion]

The subject caught my attention. I am 75 years old now, and have 50 plus years in boxing. Yes, I think training was a lot harder when I started out, and today people depend to much on machines, drugs, Yoga, ....anything to take the short and easy way. I say this because this subject always has been kicked around the past few years. Other coaches and trainers complain that the numbers in the boxing gyms are falling because to many find it easier to 'pretend' or 'dream' about boxing, but don't want to pay the price to achieve the goal. Now I realize MMA is the new craze, and young people today have more distractions to pull them away from the gym. But those few who do show up, out of every 50, we might get 10 who are dedicated to train hard and fight hard. And I can remember the days when boys picked up coke bottles, raked leaves and cut grass to pay a trainer, and that was the universe they lived in and tournaments were filled with promising fighters and large crowds. Sponsership of youth boxing has all but evaporated. Lions Clubs, American Legion and VFW Posts, Sporting Good Stores, Fire stations, police, sheriffs, all at one time sponsered fighters or teams. Today, everyone cries 'liability' and "we could get sued if some one got injured'.
Will it ever turn around....I really don't know? But I think there will always be a small core dedicated to the science of boxing, and maybe one day 'they will return in large numbers'.