In this week’s mailbag, Coach Breadman fields questions about the aftermath of the heavyweight clash between Daniel Dubois and Anthony Joshua, looks at the bout between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan and takes you behind the scenes with how he manages his time to give his fighters the best chance.

Sup Breadman, My question is in regards to training. As a trainer is there a certain type/style of fighter that you believe you are more inclined to have success with or have a preference to a certain style? How do you approach training different style of fighters? Do certain styles require training that “boost” certain attributes? For example, does a pressure fighter require more conditioning? Does a pure boxer require more roadwork? How do you feel about changing a fighter’s styles or teaching certain skills to a fighter that generally don’t go with their style? I recall Marcos Maidana adding a jab after training with Robert Garcia and finding some success with it despite being labelled as a “brawler”.

Hope you and yours are doing well, thank you.

Bread’s Response: Good question. I prefer a certain personality over a certain style. I also prefer a certain body type over a certain style. A style can be enhanced. But a body style really can’t. And the personality has to be compliant. I can’t argue with a fighter everyday about something I’m trying to teach him. 

I also have my core principles but you can’t train two fighters exactly the same. Yes, certain styles require certain boosts. If you’re a quick-twitch sharp fighter, you need explosive and reactive training. You don’t need to run 5 miles everyday to get in shape. It will slow down your approach. 

If you’re a pressure fighter you need extra sparring and endurance work because you’re grinding fighters down to win. I don’t like changing a fighter’s style. But I do believe in doing something to win a fight, even if it’s not the fighter’s natural style. I had Kyrone Davis fighting on a bounce vs Anthony Dirrell because I thought a bounce would surprise Dirrell more so than Kyrone pressing him trying to walk him down. And recently I had Caleb Plant go inside vs Trevor McCumby because I didn’t want McCumby to get momentum with his step in power. 

Davis is not a bounce and move fighter. And Plant is not naturally an inside fighter. But I’ve seen both do it in the gym, so I was comfortable training them to do those things and asking them to do it in fights.

Robert Garcia did an excellent job with Marcos Maidana. He had Maidana on his best career run and he gave Floyd fits with that jab. Maidana had a real case for winning six or seven rounds vs Mayweather in their first fight. But that’s not changing of a style. That’s adding a simple tactic that enhances a style. Maidana is a wild looping puncher and he puts hard pressure on his opponents. But a strong jab made him highly competitive vs his generation’s best fighter. 

Great question.

Hi Breadman,

Question on the Dubois Vs Joshua fight. I saw you tweet about Joshua’s problem where when he gets hurt he stays hurt. The question relates to how you can come back from a beatdown like that both from a fighters and trainers perspective. You obviously recognized this issue with Joshua that he was hurt and would have trouble coming back, so what would you have done as his trainer, throw in the towel after the 1st round? How can you channel a fighter to respond to a situation where you can see the writing is on the wall? It must be so difficult to be responsible for making these calls.

The same question applies to how you can overcome this in a potential rematch. In my opinion, it was different with Ruiz, where Ruiz was clearly smaller and containable whereas Dubois appears to have both the physical, and now, the mental advantage. Can you tell me any examples of when an older fighter has taken a serious beating and come back to win a rematch? Thanks,

Bread’s Response: I did, but Joshua has only been stopped 2x. So I don’t want to over exaggerate his demise. It’s just that when the great heavyweights get hurt, which they all do, they recover on the average a lot faster than Joshua. He seems to stay hurt for several rounds. Even against Klitschko, in a fight he won. He seemed hurt for several rounds and the only reason Wlad didn’t stop him was because Wald is overly conservative and careful. Wlad is a great fighter and great puncher but by the time he fought Joshua, he was not a killer. 

I don’t want to question Ben Davison. I’m sure he’s going through some things after taking a tough loss. So heck no, I wouldn’t have stopped that fight in the 1st round!! It’s boxing. And just because Anthony doesn’t have great recovery powers, it doesn’t mean you stop a fight in the 1st round because he got hurt. He actually came back and hurt Dubois right before he was KOd.

As painful as it is to the fighter, you have to talk about what they need to do when they’re hurt. It’s a must. Obviously you can’t punch them in the face, hurt them, then practise how to recover. But it’s something that needs to be talked about and discussed. You also have to help them recover in the corner between rounds. 

In a rematch where a fighter previously KOd, you have to give the fighter a scenario on which he can win the rematch. You have to point out the opportunities he had to win even though he didn’t. You have to also explain to him that just because a fighter had his night on THAT particular night, it doesn’t mean he can beat him every fight.

Lennox Lewis was KOd really bad vs Hasim Rahman. And he came back in an immediate rematch to ko Rahman. Tony Zale and Rocky Graziano took turns KOing each other in 3 fights. So both came back. As did Israel Vasquez and Rafael Marquez. So it’s not impossible. Joshua has something to draw from because he actually did it vs Andy Ruiz. But I agree, this will be a harder task than Ruiz. Dubois is not as easy to outbox. His jab is better than Ruiz’s. And I don’t get the impression he’s going to come in out of shape in the rematch.