How Mind Games Work At The Highest Levels Of Boxing
The boxing world is alight with discourse in the wake of Jake Paul’s marginal victory over Tyron Woodley on Sunday night.
Paul, a 24-year-old social media influencer, went through the full eight rounds against the former UFC champion and won via split decision. While the scorecards were controversial given that Paul appeared to be well ahead, he still edged Woodley out with a score of 77-75 to keep people who took advantage of the boxing odds attached to his name.
“Where’s that judge at?” he said after the bout. “I don’t know what they were looking at. But still got the victory.”
“I don’t know what to say. He’s a tough opponent. It was a tougher fight than I expected. My legs felt weird. I don’t’ know what’s wrong with me. All respect to Tyron. He’s a Hall of Famer. He put up a good fight. I have nothing but respect for him. There’s no hard feelings. This is a dream come true.”
“I feel like I won the fight,” Woodley noted. “Jake was a great opponent. F*ck the [Tommy] Fury fight, me and Jake can run it back.”
Paul has agreed to a rematch as long as Woodley gets a Jake Paul tattoo on his leg, already employing mind games ahead of another potential matchup.
Mind games are used across all sports but they can be particularly effective in boxing as getting into an opponent’s head could force them into costly errors. Paul is already becoming an expert at it but Tyson Fury reigns supreme in that regard.
The Gypsy King is quite unique in the boxing space as he specializes in mental battles ahead of an actual fight. The Brit is as adept at mind games as he is fighting and there are a number of boxers he can count as victims – those include Wladimir Klitschko and Deontay Wilder.
While he reigned dominant as the heavyweight champion, Klitschko was known to get boxing’s biggest prospects in the ring with him for sparring practice. The tactic allowed him to get a feel of potential future opponents. Fury, though, proved to be a different beast, and Klitschko’s attempts to personally scout him resulted in his fall from the top.
Fury poured on the mind games when they met on Sky Sports’ Gloves Are Off, recalling a story about a sauna showdown.
“I’m at his training camp, we’re in the sauna, about ten guys in the sauna,” he said. “And it came down to me and Wlad in the sauna. Do you remember this Wladimir, at all?
“It gets down to him and I’m over the other side. I’ve only had 12 or 13 fights, but still, in my mind, I was mentally in a competition with him. He can say what he wants, he can deny it, whatever. I was prepared to die in that sauna before I got out. I stayed in for like 40 minutes.”
“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.,” Klitschko shot back. “I don’t remember exactly that moment, but I believe in the sauna people were walking in naked, so…”
The show’s host asked Fury who left the sauna first. “He did. He got out first,” he said in response. “I thought, ‘Mental victory.’”
“That you built in your own world, that didn’t exist,” the then-champion retorted.
“We both know it did exist,” Fury said calmly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Klitschko maintained.
“You can say you don’t know what I’m talking about, but I know and you know it did exist,” Fury remarked.
This bothered Klitschko so much, he was looking to clarify it almost five years removed from the defeat.
“I keep reading these disturbing stories about Fury’s recollections of a sauna,” he said last year. “1) Apparently I was in some contest, in his head. 2) How creepy this man keeps having thoughts/dreams of me in a sauna.”
That wouldn’t be all the mind games Fury would employ ahead of the fight and he would later recall getting Klitschko to change the mattress they would be fighting on as the champ initially had a memory foam set up that wouldn’t allow for optimal movement. Fury’s camp threatened to call off the fight and go home if changes weren’t made – they also threatened to leave after Klitschko got wrapped up without waiting for someone from the opposing camp to watch, as is customary. He was made to unwrap and repeat the process in front of Fury’s father.
“I believe Wladimir Klitschko was already beaten before he got in the ring on the night,” he boasted. “Watching him walk to the ring, he had the face of a loser straight away because all of his little antics didn’t work. All I had to do was go in there, play my part and win.”
