Hats, Handwraps and Headaches by Paddy Simpson

Author:Paddy Simpson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2020-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

Building back to the top: A visit to GGG

The aftermath and a visit to Triple G

SO WHAT happened after George lost the second fight with Carl so conclusively? You both must have been pretty down. ‘The next day, I called George and asked him how he was feeling.’

“The truth, coach?” he said. “I was dominating that fight. I know I screwed up. But I feel good. There’s not a mark on me.”

‘I asked him if he was open to me visiting and he liked the idea. I went round and asked him if he had seen the fight. He told me he had watched it that morning. I asked if he minded watching it again? I showed him how when we were following the gameplan, we were winning. And then, in round eight, I asked him why he thought Carl had landed the right hand.

‘I showed him that he was the wrong side of the line to counter with his hook and that’s why Carl’s shot got home first. I played the finish again so he could see what I meant. As I was doing it, I was watching him out of the corner of my eye. I replayed it around eight times and then asked him if it made sense.

‘He said simply, “Yes, I won’t shoot a hook off the line again.”’

It’s clear that George was disappointed with himself and his performance in the second fight. I imagine that this would affect the confidence of a fighter. So I ask Paddy, how did he bring George back from this defeat? How did he restore George’s confidence in himself?

‘If George had needed his confidence building up, he didn’t show it. He was very good and that was partly the reason why I went round to see him the very next morning after the fight. When I had got George to watch the knockout over and again, I wanted him to see that he had made a simple mistake and been punished for it. This wasn’t a big emotional collapse. It wasn’t that George had gassed. It wasn’t like he was losing the fight either. It was as simple as, “There’s your mistake and there’s how you got paid for it. We can’t do this again.”

‘A loss like that will affect any fighter, but how it affected him didn’t show up for a while. He hides any questions he might have about himself very well. George is a confident man and a confident fighter. But I did have to help him answer the questions he might have. But that wasn’t a lack of confidence.’

So what did you decide to do then to help George answer his questions? Is this when you decided to go to Big Bear for some serious sparring with serious opposition?

‘The situation now was this. Regardless of why, we had lost two fights on the bounce. Regardless of why, George was undefeated two fights ago. A fighter is going to have questions. Questions are fine, so long as you have the answers, or someone can give them to you.

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