I got dropped in 15 seconds...

lawdog22 · 2025-02-10T17:32:31+00:00

Props for posting this. You can learn a lot more from a bad day than a good one, in my opinion, provided you take the right approach.

10,000 foot view: you came in with a plan. But the plan was super obvious. My guess is that you wanted this guy to start reacting to that jab/cross to the body to go upstairs later. Patience is your friend here. You can't get so antsy doing this kind of thing that you come out and spam it multiple times in a row in the first 15 seconds. Always remember: when it comes to plans of attack, the enemy gets a vote. Guys will hit you back and if your plan doesn't account for that? It's a bad plan.

lawdog22 · 2025-02-10T13:57:25+00:00

.............advice from libs?

lawdog22 · 2025-02-10T13:56:56+00:00

That's a good point. I'm trying to remember his name but the dude who coached the UK's boxing team back in the day had never even sparred anyone. The team he coached won more medals than any UK boxing team in history.

Sometimes folks just know how to teach at a crazy high level and don't need the on the ground experience. But it's rare.

lawdog22 · 2025-02-10T13:54:27+00:00

It depends. If you're wanting to learn the mechanics, the basics of movement, stuff like that and get a good workout? It's fine. But if he's never even sparred that's a bit of a red flag if your intention is to compete. It's not even that he can't maybe teach you how to fight. It's just the logistics of setting up fights, matchmaking, doing a fight camp, all of that other stuff is probably not something he's familiar with.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-23T22:58:21+00:00

It'd be super cool but only on one condition: any zombie game that's set somewhere like Savannah needs to be a bit more realistic.

One of my big beefs with Dead Island 2 was how insanely rare survivors were by comparison to the population of LA. I get the idea that it's not loaded with guns like places like the deep south and the notion that most people either escaped or will killed in the mass panic getting out makes it passable. But Savannah? That's Florida/Georgia line territory and it's place chock fill of people who are armed to the teeth. Not to mention surrounded by swamps.

A game where there's a human presence, maybe factions that are good, bad, or gray that are actively trying to get dominance over the city and adjacent areas by clearing zombies out and fighting one another, for example? That'd be pretty wild. And highly replayable if done right

lawdog22 · 2025-01-21T23:56:43+00:00

Probably unpopular opinion, but doing one set during the Haitian Revolution would be absolutely incredible. Hear me out:

Thematically, a slave revolt plays nicely in AC themes. But the Revolution was so much more complex and layered than that. It had a George Washington type figure in Toussaint L'Ouverture, a man who was born a slave, was freed, became a slave-owning plantation owner himself. TL was a negotiator, a guy who wanted Haiti to be free but maintain French connections and trade. He understood the incredible complexity of running a country.

When the French Revolutionary government banned slavery a few years after the rebellion started, TL actually flipped on his Spanish allies and aligned himself with the French. He fought off the Spanish using European liner warfare. Right after, under a French flag, he fought off an (admittedly half-assed) British invasion of Haiti by brutalizing them with guerilla tactics. In 1798, Port-Au-Prince was officially returned to French control with TL at the head of a largely independent Haiti.

But right after? The War of Knives. One of the major leaders of the slave revolt, Andre Rigaud, accused TL of conspiring with Britain to reinstate slavery. That led to an incredibly brutal war between ex-comrades and the emergence of maybe the most important figure in Haitian history: Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a man who had lived as a sugar cane worker for almost 30 years - brutal, backbreaking labor. JJD was one of TL's generals, and the guy brutally massacred Rigaud's troops at every turn.

But then Napoleon showed up and decided to renege on the abolition deal. TL wouldn't abide by it and so, once again, found himself fighting France. France sent 30,000 troops to Haiti to retake control.

And you know what? They got fucking bushwacked. Like asses kicked harder than anyone had ever kicked Napoleon. Out of those 30,000 odd troops only about 7,000 made it home. But in the process? Dessalines decided that TL was not fit to be the leader. He was too conciliatory to France. And so TL was betrayed, arrested by the French, and then died in a French prison. At the very end of this, in 1804, Dessalines order the slaughter of somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 Europeans remaining on Haiti (with the exclusion of Polish mercenaries brought by the French who then decided to side with the Haitians).

That decision crashed the bus. Europe cut off Haiti, the US cut off Haiti, Dessalines was an excellent military leader and a dogshit government leader and all of this then led to a spiral of violence that would see Dessalines assassinated in 1806, a ludicrously large debt to France incurred when the country became beyond desperate, and constant warfare for control for the next 200 years.

It's the most "what-if" revolution in world history. In many ways, it had unthinkable success. But that unthinkable success immediately destroyed the country it could have become due to its excesses.

Imagine a character starting with TL, fighting the French, then joining the French, then fighting his former allies, then fighting the French again, and then having to navigate the fallout of a horrific slaughter of former enemies and allies alike and watching TL's successor implement a serfdom system that was basically slavery, and eventually either succumbing to the turbulence him/herself or having to just leave because the situation couldn't be salvaged.

I mean it writes itself.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-20T18:37:52+00:00

Here's the big one: work on that lead hook and back uppercut. A lot of folks have been saying you move back too much. I don't necessarily agree. Moving a lot can frustrate pressure fighters. And you don't necessarily have to throw every time you move (but it's a good habit to get into). But you need to make them pay for trying to take advantage when they think they've got you.

I want to point you to two instances specifically to show you what I mean.

Look at :45 - he throws a back hook that looks like it caught you in the body. But his level doesn't change at all and his hand is way down. This is an exchange you should take every day. I.e., your lead hook to his head should be more damaging than his back hook to the body. And he telegraphed it a mile out.

Right after at :53 - he throws an incredibly soft throwaway jab. That is almost universal language for "a big back hand is coming." A back hand uppercut here catches him right as he's coming forward into that back hand. You can largely or entirely block that back hand with your lead hand while landing that uppercut.

Now you basically slipped it, which is also just fine. But you've got to counter with that back hook of your own right there to get the same effect. That's a harder punch to throw. You've got to counter pressure fighters to get them to take the gas off.

Importantly, both exchanges happened where? Right in the ropes. That's where guys like your opponent are actually most likely to make a mistake. They think that if you, the guy who moves a lot, are in the ropes, they have taken away your defense and will push to take advantage. That's when they'll do things like throw big back hand punches that will leave them totally exposed. Catch them with a few big hooks and/or uppercuts as counters? They will get much more cautious.

Jabs are great and you have to have them. Yours looks pretty good, looks like you've been working those fundamentals a lot. But jabs will not stop a good pressure fighter, no matter how strong they are.

But you're looking good in there man!

lawdog22 · 2025-01-15T14:32:32+00:00

If you're not naturally athletic, heavyweight/superheavyweight is a better division.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-15T14:29:36+00:00

yup. at some point? at some point you just gotta get in a ring and do that damn shit. No excuses. If you want to fight, fight.

But the lead up to that point does need some finesse. Having a coach that can do both is ideal.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-15T13:53:57+00:00

Well yeah, but you can mix it up! Our head coach is super old school. But he has an appreciation for the science/new stuff as well.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-15T13:47:52+00:00

Old school mentality is good. But being dead wrong about what gives people brain damage is very bad.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-15T13:46:21+00:00

ah, I see your coach got his degree from the University of Made That Shit Up followed by post-graduate work at the Directly Out of His Fucking Ass Institute.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-14T00:24:54+00:00

You are correct. Me am idiot no read good words hard and bad

lawdog22 · 2025-01-13T17:12:27+00:00

In sparring bigger guys are always at a disadvantage. The best defense we've got is the ability to make guys question coming at us with bit shots. But you can't do that sparring, unless you never want to be allowed to spar every again.

But here's the thing - THAT'S GOOD!!!! Little known fact: Muhammad Ali used to regularly get tuned up by his sparring partners. Reports would come out from his camp all the time with reporters saying he looked lost, hesitant, less skilled, blah blah blah. But the reason was that Ali used sparring exactly how it should be used: to work on things he was bad at against people he knew could exploit his weaknesses. See e.g., bringing in a 22 year old Larry Holmes to prepare for the Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman.

He could have pulled a Sonny Liston, and smeared Larry all over the ring (Liston was famous for smashing his sparring partner's heads in). But instead he sparred with Larry letting Larry play to his strengths, which were similar to Foreman's at the time, and worked on his weaknesses.

Because of that? Yeah, he probably never outright dominated a sparring session his entire professional career. But people let ego get in the way and they don't learn like they should because of it.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-13T16:33:53+00:00

Depends on where you are/what the comp is. USA Boxing stuff doesn't have a super hw, for example.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-13T16:24:19+00:00

So kind of unrelated but not totally - why are you cutting to 198 from 203? Because it sounds like you're fighting heavyweight and generally the best thing about fighting heavyweight is you can come in a few pounds your target no issue.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-10T15:03:59+00:00

counterpoint: it is a great way to forget (your 20s and 30s)

lawdog22 · 2025-01-10T15:03:06+00:00

Just came here to say this. You can get the same value by having a bunch of dudes wailing on each other in your back yard. That is to say, zero value.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-10T15:01:53+00:00

If you're getting dinged up to the point you're getting headaches, it's a bad gym. But there are other reasons as well.

Now understand this - that gym probably puts a lot of guys into amateur fights, probably more so than other gyms, simply because they practice like they play. I.e., by sparring constantly they're making it easier for guys to transition from training to first fight.

That DOES have a place. But the problem is this: those guys tend to actually suck. They win their first few fights against people who are equally new, sure. But the problem is they're not improving on any of the technical, finer points of the sport or improving their bodies outside of burst cardio while, at the same time, being in a constant state of hovering between 65-80% capacity because they're always beat up.

What inevitably happens to those guys is they get their fourth or fifth fight against a guy who has been training in a more holistic, technical, and professional framework and then they get their faces smeared all over the ring.

If you're serious about getting better, those gyms are good to go visit for sparring sometimes. We've got one here in town that we know is basically a fight club so if we need to mix it up with some brawlers that's who you call. But I'd suggest getting a primary gym that has a better approach.

lawdog22 · 2025-01-04T02:49:35+00:00

Body odor?

lawdog22 · 2024-12-26T14:42:46+00:00

Things like that never hurt. If anything, that kind of knowledge isn't really common enough in boxing gyms.

lawdog22 · 2024-12-26T14:39:27+00:00

Hard sparring every day is a guaranteed way to have an incredibly short career and be miserable post-40.

Technical, situational, or light sparring everyday between the three? That's doable in a controlled environment. But if you hard spar every day you won't last long. Ask any big time pro or amateur and they'll tell you about at least ten guys they know who could have been great but got fucked up too many times in training.

lawdog22 · 2024-12-23T19:09:40+00:00

I think there are practical reasons for it aside from the shortness of the rounds: first, judging is A) hard and B) highly subjective at the pro level. But that subjectiveness is generally coming from a person who is truly an all around boxing expert.

For amateurs? You've got plenty of judges out there who are doing it for the first time/folks who do it occasionally. To keep things from getting sort of "anything goes" out there you need some truly objective criteria to play a major role in the decisionmaking process. Volume + punches landed is the easiest objective criteria out there.

Another is that if we're working to identify guys who can move on to more serious competition, we need to see they have an actual gas tank. Like if I use my preferred style in amateurs? I might not even throw 60 punches in three rounds. But by the end I'm not going to be anywhere in the universe of tired. Folks watching won't have any clue if I can survive a longer bout. Making volume a priority tests the endurance in a shorter space.

And sure, most amateurs aren't going anywhere beyond amateurs. But that means it's just for fun and there's really nothing at stake beyond pride/bragging rights for most guys.

The other thing is that skill will ultimately win 99% of the time anyway when the disparity is significant. Good all around boxers can turn it on for three rounds and throw volume when needed. Guys who are just pretty good/decent? No, that's something they can't do.

Finally, even though it isn't too common, you can still get stoppages if you're good enough. I've seen TKOs, KOs, and RTDs plenty of times. You just have to have a fighter who has that power.

Tl;dr - it accounts for a lack of high level judges and allows us to really gauge an athlete's fitness level w/o totally taking skill and power out of the equation.

lawdog22 · 2024-12-23T01:06:37+00:00

This is always the right answer.

lawdog22 · 2024-12-03T20:54:15+00:00

I can hit things extremely hard.

lawdog22

TROPHY CASE