🥊🇦🇨Tim TSZYU UD12 Errol SPENCE: HOW did he do it? by profighter D Hamaguchi

Pro fighter D Hamaguchi🥋🥊👊48 kg
US Natl Judo Chmp 45 kg

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Transcript

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Tim Zoo defeated Errol Spence Jr. over 12 rounds in Australia to secure his position in the 160-pound division. This was a fairly one-sided affair. One judge scored it 10 rounds, Zoo, two rounds Spence, and two other judges scored it nine rounds for Zoo, three rounds for Spence. The judges' scorecards aside, I will give you three reasons why Errol Spence lost, and three reasons why Tim Zoo won in terms of their technical execution in the ring. And then I'll wrap up with what I thought was the best part of the fight for me, and it has nothing to do with either Tim Zoo nor Errol Spence Jr. Errol Spence started right out of the gate with his feet too wide. His stance was off. I noticed that right immediately after the opening bell. And with his feet that wide, that makes Errol less mobile. It gives away any potential height advantage he could have. And also having his feet so wide takes away a little bit of his power of the power on his punches because of the wider base when he's trying to torque into his punch, for example, for his straight left. Now I wonder if Spence Jr. chose to have such a wide stance because he had balance concerns. Only he can really answer that. But the second factor with Errol's footwork was that he was falling into his punches after he threw them. He would fall into Tim Zoo, and rather than fight on the inside, there would just be clinching and holding. Now, it's my expectation as a professional fighter that if you're at the world-class level, you should know how to fight on the inside and the outside. You can't be that one-dimensional fighter at that level. The third reason why I felt Errol Spence Jr. lost that fight was he was not able to execute the game plan being given to him in live time between rounds by his trainer, the esteemed Ronnie Shields. I'm going to guess the lot that a lot of Gen Z Gen Alpha listeners don't know who Ronnie Shields is because he's an OG boxing trainer. Yes, he's older, but that means he has more experience and more knowledge. No, he's probably not all over social media calling himself Coach Ronnie or Coach This and posting little clips on TikTok on how to do this or how to do that in the boxing ring. But Ronnie knows what he's talking about. He's a former fighter himself. He's been working with professional fighters at least since the 90s, maybe the 80s. At one point, Ronnie Shields was the house trainer for main event promotions. Main events is a promotional company that no longer exists. But back in the day, different promoters used to have what they call a house trainer. So, for example, top rank, I believe, had house trainers. What this meant was when a promotion, boxing promotion, signed a group of new, new professional fighters out of the amateur ranks, they would often send them to a camp. In this case, Maine Events had their camp in View Beach, Florida. And so this group of young up-and-coming, hopefully, fighters would work with the same trainer and they would be given, you know, their living expenses covered. The promoter would have a large house for them all to stay at and cover their uh give them per diem to spend on food and whatnot. But effectively, these young up-and-comers, you know, the promoter had already invested in them by signing them. So they want to make sure that uh these young fighters get decent training. So that's why they would hire a house trainer. In this case, it was Ronnie Shields. Since then, you know, Shields has moved on and has established himself as a great boxing trainer. So I'm assuming he just he just works on his own right now. But for somebody who's starting out as a professional boxing trainer, being a house trainer is good because you don't have to foot the bill for uh you know, furnishing and renting out a gym, keeping the lights on, worrying about uh all the all the monthly bills while you're still trying to establish yourself as a trainer. And all of these young fighters, they're not making a lot of money. They may be not making hardly any money. So if you're only gonna get 10%, you're you're making a hundred dollars, two hundred dollars every couple months from each one of these fighters. That's not enough to live on. So that's why it's it was a good model for up-and-coming fighters and up-and-coming boxing trainers to have this promotional house model. Now, that aside, my point is that Ronnie Shields has been in the game for a long time and he knows what he's talking about. So I noticed throughout the fight, he was asking Errol Spence to keep moving his head off the center line. That was the first his his first request, which makes sense because that's defense. More important that you don't get hit than you land your punches. And then Ronnie Shields was asking Errol Spence to throw his right hook to the body, right? Because Errol's a southpaw. So right hook to the body, right uppercut, because he felt that Tim Zoo was open for those punches. I think we saw Spence Jr. try to execute that a few times, but just not with the frequency and maybe the urgency that Shields was hoping for. So I guess the bigger question is why is this that Errol wasn't able to execute? And why was it that he had his feet so wide apart and his his balance was so off that he was falling into Tim after he threw his punches? My guess is perhaps he did not get enough hard sparring in, just a guess. And the reason I'm saying that, Andre Ward's podcast, when Errol was a guest, he said, or he claimed that that his trainer at the time, Derek James, didn't call for enough sparring. However, when Derek went on another podcast, he clarified that it was actually Errol Spence's father that insisted Errol not spar because he had injured his ribs or something in another sparring session earlier on in the camp, like within the first few weeks. So according to Derek, according to Derek James, Errol Errol only had two weeks of good sparring before during the whole camp. Now, I don't have any insight. I I don't think the same reason for Errol not sparring enough this time is due to an injury. I guess we maybe we'll find out if Errol decides to reveal anything publicly about that. But I my guess is it's more the psychology of it. It's I'll I'll tell you uh from my own personal point of view, it is really emotionally and mentally and psychologically just absolutely draining putting yourself through hard rounds of sparring. I I'm wondering, you know, maybe each one of us only has a certain limit as to how many rounds of hard sparring we can put in over a lifetime or over a career. And for those of you guys who don't actually spar, it might be zero. Like you just don't have, as Tyson Fury and others would call it, the minerals to step in there for live sparring. Now, live sparring doesn't mean, you know, you got two morons trying to kill each other. Live sparring means each person, like you and your sparring partner that you've paid to come in, you are trying to execute your game plan, and they're trying to execute the game plan that their trainer's given them. And you are both trying to push each other just enough, right? You're both working within what we call your zone of proximal development. So there is a constant factor of being uncomfortable, but it's not so much that you're just getting completely overwhelmed and you shut down. Now that that can happen because all of us who do spar live, we've had those horrible days or horrible evenings where the sparring session just sucks. And there's really hardly any redeeming factors to take from that, except that you burned some calories and got some rounds in. But as I asked, as I asked my first professional uh trainer, you know, what well, how can I take something positive out of this horrible sparring session? And he just said, Well, there's there's always tomorrow, like there's always the next sparring session. So that's the mindset you have to have. But I'll tell I'll tell you, like leading up to knowing that you have to put yourself through this fight camp, which is eight weeks or ten weeks, and at least six or seven of those weeks are gonna include really tough sparring sessions two to three times a week. Some people go up to four times a week. That is a lot of mental stress. You're gonna be thinking about it during the day leading up to the session. You're under a certain amount of anxiety and stress and nervousness on your way to the gym. As soon as you walk in the gym, while you're getting your hands wrapped, or you're wrapping your own hands. Every moment leading up to that session is stressful. Then there's the actual sparring itself, which is physically and mentally draining. And then there's the post-sparring session where, you know, maybe you hopefully it goes well, but there may be something that you're not happy about or your trainee is really not happy about. But there's that post-breakdown that needs to go on between the athlete and the coach. And then, of course, there's all the other things that you need to do as a responsible athlete to make sure you're ready for the next day practice and for the next sparring session. You have to take care of yourself nutrition-wise. You have to take care of getting enough sleep. If you have any little nagging injuries or soreness, you have to get that taken care of with, you know, maybe a bodywork appointment for massage, for cryotherapy, etc. So there's a lot to manage between that practice and the next session. And and all this adds a layer of mental stress to the athlete on top of the actual physical sparring itself. So my point is here has Errol Spence just gotten to the point in his career where he's like, I only want to do this much sparring. I don't want to put myself through that horrible experience of eight, seven, eight, nine weeks of hell. I, you know, I don't know. He he'd have to come clean on that. Ronnie Shields, like I said, is an OG type trainer. He's not gonna spill the tea, as they say. I don't I don't think he'd throw his fight any of his fighters under the bus ever, even if he knew in his heart like they didn't put themselves through the tough sparring rounds that they should have in order to get to that point where they can execute in the ring under duress. No, that again, that is just my suspicion based on what I saw in the ring from Errol Spence or lack thereof from Errol Spence. Okay, so let's move on to Tim Zoo. What did he do? Well, first thing he did is it's really more what he didn't do, but we'll start with what he did well, which is to put up that high double guard and stay right on top of Errol Spence for pretty much every moment of every round. Now, simply by doing that and staying within distance, not running around and keeping far away, which is not Tim's style, anyways, Tim was able to maintain constant pressure on Errol Spence. So Errol became the one who was trying to move around and avoid punches and then tried to line up his own shots. So really terrific game planning by Tim's trainer, Jeff Fenneck. I think that's how you say his last name. Uh Australian fighter turn trainer. And also, you know, along with Ronnie, also what I considered an OG trainer. So there are that that was the one thing that I felt that Tim did really well was to just put up that high double guard, be really disciplined about it, and stay within that distance. Very disciplined. But the interesting thing for me was really two things that Tim did not do that I've seen him do in the past, which I felt were really uh bad errors. So the first thing Tim did not do is he didn't do the thing where he leans back to his right as his primary means of defense. That was a really flawed move for Tim to do because it would leave him wide open for a big left hook. So huge props to Tim and his trainer because I'm quite sure it's it was his trainer who drilled that bad habit out of Tim Zoo. Now, the second thing that Tim did not do, which was uh good, was that he didn't try to do what he's not capable of, which is to be highly athletic and say make sudden darting movements or sudden dips and slips and pivots. I noticed that was absent, which is good. I mean, not to be overly critical of Tim, but he's not as we would say uh naturally athletic as Errol Spence is. But by making sure he didn't try to do something that he's not capable of, he didn't put himself at risk. So that takes a lot of mental discipline as well. And I'm again sure that it was uh Tim's trainer that insisted that he just stick to, as he pointed out, between rounds, stick to the basics, stick to fundamentals. When Tim listened to his corner and kept going back to the jab and more productive rounds, in my opinion, the rounds that Spence won were based on output, and it was really more Tim's lack of output that had Errol winning those fights. It wasn't specifically, you know, Errol coming up with something brilliant to do during those rounds. It was just Tim didn't do enough. Now, to Tim's absolute credit, it was clear to me that he did put in hard sparring rounds because he was able to pick it up in those last few championship rounds, and he really nailed Errol quite well with those straight right hands. At one point, it looked like Errol kind of fell into the ropes in the corner based on the camera angle. It was just from behind Errol, and you couldn't really see his feet, so I don't know if he actually stumbled. But kudos to Tim. In order to be able to come on strong in that last round and have the precision and mental clarity to nail your opponent with good hard shots like that, it means Tim is in superb condition and that he subjected himself to those hard rounds in the gym. Because if you can't close out a sparring session like that, there's no way you're going to be able to do it in an actual fight. So my guess is, you know, Fenek being an old school trainer and an old school fighter, I'm pretty sure he made Tim spar well over 12 rounds and he made him finish hard. So that was ingrained in Tim Zoo mentally and physically. You know, his body knows what to do, and his mind knows what it needs to do during those final few rounds versus Errol Spence Jr. So I'll close with what really was the best part of that whole fight for me, and you may have already guessed it, it was being able to hear Ronnie Shields and Jeff Fenneck in the corner. I am so glad that the production team for PVC decided to mic up both of those trainers, and they and we could hear their instructions clearly. Both trainers gave their fighters exactly the right advice, and it was specific and it was technical. It wasn't just some random stuff like, come on, where's your power? What are you doing? You know you can do better than that, or just some, you know, non-specific pseudo-motivational garbage. You know, Ronnie Shields told Errol, as I pointed out earlier, specifics. Move your head off the center line, come with the right hook to the body, right uppercut. Jeff Fenneck told Tim, you know, get going with the jab, back to the fundamentals, come with that jab right hand. Fenneck also told Sue, look, he doesn't want to be here anymore. And I think that was accurate. I think as an old school fighter and trainer, he could read Errol Spence's body language and know, you know, Errol wasn't really looking for a way to dominate in this fight. He just didn't want to be in the ring past the midway point of the fight. So that was his way of motivating Tim to pick it up. Now I'm biased towards Gen X trainers or Gen X or whatever's before Gen X trainers because I feel that they're not, they're not catering to social media because many of them don't even have a social media account. They're not given to this whole, oh, you're special, you're snowflake, I don't want to hurt your feelings, all that PC stuff that absolutely does not apply in the squared circle. So for me, it was a real pleasure to hear not one but two Gen X or older trainers plying their craft in the corner and giving their fighters good sound technical advice between rounds. I actually enjoyed the corner work more than I enjoyed the actual fight, but I mean that's fine. As an added bonus, I would like to say a little bit about the business aspect of this fight. And so we have to follow the bouncing ball with Tim Zoo, his belt, and the PBC. So if you recall, way back when Tim Zoo held the WBO belt at 154 pounds. And for the PBC's inaugural broadcast with Amazon Prime, Tim Zoo was supposed to fight Keith Thurman at 154. And it wasn't going to be a title fight, which is bizarro for a main event, and it was going to be Keith Thurman's first outing at 154. So that's why it couldn't be sanctioned as a title fight because Keith Thurman had never fought at 154. So the WBO could not sanction him as a valid title challenger. So I called BS on that from the outset because I was, it doesn't make sense that Amazon Prime, a new broadcast platform, would sign off on a main event that's not for a title. Any broadcaster doesn't really care what the title is, they just want a title as the main event so they can sell the whole fight card to their viewers. I mean, that was the whole thing with, you know, when it used to be Showtime and HBO pay-per-view model. Well, it's the same concept, even though now it's all streaming platforms. So lo and behold, out of thin air, Keith Thurman declares that he had some type of arm injury. And the WBO or the WBC rather, and the PVC and the Commission all suddenly figure out that while Sebastian Fandora was printing for a fight, anyways, we'll just elevate him up to fight Tim Zoo for his belt. Now all of a sudden, the belt is on the line with like three days' notice. Tim Zoo has to adjust to fight a ridiculously tall southpaw in Sebastian Fandora. So unfortunately for Tim at that time, he was not signed to the PVC. So they just used him to snatch that WBO belt or the WBC belt being sanctioned as a valid 154-pound uh challenger. So the PVC, uh the WBC and the Commission uh all conspired to uh shift the belt away from Tim Zoo to the PVC's fighter, Sebastian Fandora. So lo and behold, things keep moving forward. Tim Zoo is now signed to PVC. So what do they do now? They throw him Errol Spence. So they've now moved Tim back into a position to vie for a title shot at 160. I know I kind of compressed the events there, but I'm just trying to point out in the end, this is all just about business in terms of who's fighting who and why they're fighting them. It's really more about the promoters and the sanctioning bodies and the commissions manipulating things to their own ends. It's not about who deserves the title shot. It has nothing to do with that. All right. So, regardless, I hope you guys enjoyed that. Tim Zoo and Errol Spence Jr., let us know your thoughts on that fight. Who would you like to see Tim face next at 160 pounds? Share your thoughts in the comments and in the fan mail. Thank you.