By Gav Duthie: With Carl Froch 32-2 (23) recently singing the praises of middleweight prospect Chris Eubank Jnr 15-0 (10) as a sparring partner I thought I would look at the link between quality sparring and boxing performance come fight night. I also want to explore some of the rumours of big sparring upsets over the years. Its something that always fascinated me what happens behind closed doors. As a boxing fan you’ve got to love a bit of Rocky Balboa. One question I always wanted to know was who won the fight after the credits of Rocky 3 between Balboa and Apollo Creed.

The more I looked into this when certain boxers who were rumored to look sluggish in sparring often went on to lose the big fight. A lot of these are behind closed doors and only rumored but many were public displays and a great watch if you have a spare half hour.

Mike Tyson

One of the greatest sparring sessions you can see online is between Iron Mike and Oliver McCall. Its a full on scrap between an unstoppable force against an immovable object. Tyson throws everything but the kitchen sink at Oliver but he takes it. McCall had one of the best chins in boxing. His only stoppage defeat came to Lennox Lewis where rather than go down he cried his way to defeat. Another time Tyson made McCall quit a session with a barrage of body shots. This was good preparation for him before he stopped Tyrell Biggs inside 7 rounds.

It was a different story when he sparred fringe contender Greg Page 58-17-1 (48) before he fought James ‘Buster’ Douglas in Japan. This was a public session in which Tyson walked onto a well timed right hand by the powerful Page and he slumped down to the canvas. The video was quickly pulled but is now back online for all to see. We all know what happened next after a sluggish performance all night Douglas knocked Tyson out in the tenth round.

Ricky Hatton

Just before the fight with Manny Pacquiao, Ricky brought unknown Cuban prospect Erislandy Lara into the camp. Judging by the dates Lara would have been a 5 or 6 fight novice at this stage. Apparently they boxed for 5 rounds and Lara beat him up badly. He was asked not to come back. Again not long after Ricky put in the worst performance of his career when Pacquiao took just two rounds to destroy him.

Oscar De La Hoya

Staying with the Pacquiao theme, Oscar had some pretty eventful sparring before their encounter. After a session De La Hoya came to his press conference sporting a black eye. He claimed it was given to him by light welterweight prospect Victor Ortiz. However, the late Edwin Valero piped up and tried to take credit for it saying he beat Oscar up. Valero was dismissed and accused of hitting after the session was over.

Kostya Tszyu

In an attempt to match Ricky Hatton’s strength before Kostya’s last ever fight he had a public sparring session with middleweight Sam Soliman. Soliman was quite complimentary of the power of Tszyu saying he hit harder than most middleweights but in watching the session I felt the Aussie/Russian’s timing was off and his defensive skills seemed to be disappearing with age.

David Haye

Hayemaker promotions released a video for the Tyson Fury fight sparring top heavyweight contenders Deontay Wilder, Alexander Dimitrenko, Richard Towers and Mariusz Wach. Ironically after being in the ring with all those heavy hitters Haye cut his eye a week before the fight and had to cancel.

Which one of these bruisers did it? None of them it was amateur boxer Filip Hrgovic.

Floyd Mayweather

Anyone who wants to see if Floyd Mayweather Jr. can be dominated have a look at his session with Paul Spadafora. The southpaw was constantly landing a body, right hook, left uppercut combination. It was a shame Spadafora never really took any career risks and finally lost recently.

Edwin Valero

When Edwin was 12-0 (12) all in the first round he had a few public sessions with Erik Morales available online. If you can get past the fact Erik is dressed in what resembles a gimp suit it is really great stuff. Morales still looks classy but you could see the potential that was thrown away by Valero.

70s Heavyweights

Before the final installment of one of the greatest trilogies of all time between Ingemar Johansson and Floyd Patterson the swede held a public exhibition session with little known 8-0 fighter Cassius Clay. Ali boxed rings round him and said that he deserved the title shot against Floyd. After Patterson knocked him out in the rubber match Johansson never fought again.

The biggest fight of the era that didn’t happen was undoubtedly Joe Frazier v Ken Norton. One of the main reasons were that they were both trained by Eddie Futch and were very close friends. Apparently they sparred often though and Frazier would have destroyed Ken if they fought.

Sly Stallone

Sly apparently sparred Earnie Shavers and had to tell the big punching heavyweight to only hit him in the arms, even then he still went flying across the ring. In later years Stallone and Leonard’s TV show the contender saw Sergio Mora become an overnight star. However Antonio Margarito put him in his place in a sparring session landing pretty much everything he threw. The Latin snake never really amounted to anything despite some decent potential.

Sparring is one of the most important parts of a boxers and trainers regime. It lets them see what needs to be adjusted and is imperative for sharpness. Next week we will get to see if sparring with Eubank Jnr will have any positive effect on closing the ring on George Groves.