Hi hitmandonny,
You wrote:
iN ALL HONESTY BKIMBLE, i FIND THERE IS NO EXCERCISE BETTER THAN SPARRING IN BOXING. tHIS EXCERCISE PROMOTES TECHNIQUE, THOUGHT SPEED AND IN MY OPINION POWER.
tHERE SEEMS TO BE THE COMMONLY HELD BELIEF THAT ONE MUST PREPARE BEFORE TAKING PART IN ANY COMBAT, BUT i FEEL TAKING PART IN COMBAT HONING YOUR SKILLS AND CHALLENGING YOURSELF PHYSICALLY IS THE BEST WAY TO PREPARE FOR A FIGHT.
You're pulling everyone's leg right? No offense, but you can't be serious. Your comments about sparring are analogous to telling a baseball player, for example, to work on/hone his batting skills by just playing scrimmage games instead of spending quality time isolating, analyzing, and honing his batting skills through specific, isolated batting practice (which, by the way, all organized baseball players from Little League to the Professional ranks do). Take a look at any serious organized sport (e.g. baseball, football, basketball, hockey, tennis, soccer, racquetball, boxing, MMA, folkstyle/freestyle/Greco-Roman wrestling, track and field, swimming, gymnastics, motor racing, etc, etc) and thoroughly observe how the practitioners train and perfect their skills. EVERY sport and specialized skill set (e.g. firearm skills, military and law enforcement tactics, etc) all have and use isolation drills on the specific skills/attributes associated with the activity they want to improve. If we are being serious here, there is no sport around where you best learn/hone each specific skill involved by simply playing the game. That would be ludicrous because what are you basing your skill foundation on in the first place? I could go on and on with example after example to further reinforce my points but suffice it to say if you are serious about mastering any particular sport or skill, you must prepare (and prepare properly) if you want to become really proficient at it. So, bottom line, this means that to hone any one particular facet/attribute of a given sport/skill, you have to isolate the particular facet/attribute you want/need to improve upon. In terms of bkimble's specific question, improving punching power entails more than sparring to maximize his or anyone else's potential; "it" (i.e. punching power) needs to be isolated and drilled with this specific attribute in mind. Let me end this segment with a well-known adage referred to as the 7 P's: "Proper planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance."

Now, in regards to sparring, it is indeed the best all-around/overall way to prepare for actual combat; no ifs, ands, or buts about it. However, bkimble specifically asked how to improve punching power not how to improve his overall fighting skill/ability. As far as sparring (not fighting) is concerned, it shouldn't be a fight/contest to win, but rather an interactive, resistive, dynamic learning experience to mainly improve/hone TIMING/COUNTERING, SPATIAL RELATIONSHIP/DISTANCING/FOOTWORK, and FIGHT STRATEGY/TACTICS, not punching power. Your sparring partners should not be used as punching bags for you to tee off on and improve your punching power. This goes the other way around too; you don't want sparring partners who are looking to tear your head off either and ruin you for the actual fight you are preparing for. From either perspective, that would be flat-out counterproductive.

Sparring should be all about putting your whole game together (completely or in "pieces") in an interactive, resistive, dynamic learning environment without killing yourself and/or your sparring partners in the process. There should be NO EGO involved in sparring. Save the banging for the fight itself...

Since I'm on the subject, one last point about sparring, it isn't just about improving/honing your entire, full-spectrum game; specific attributes can be isolated too WITH focused objectives. I'm kind of reiterating what I wrote above but it's worth mentioning again in this particular vein; I believe THE BEST WAY to isolate and hone/improve the attributes of TIMING/COUNTERING and SPATIAL RELATIONSHIP/DISTANCING/FOOTWORK along with the associated FIGHT STRATEGY/TACTICS is through FOCUSED sparring.

Anyway, take care all...

Best Regards,
Lito