Does he manage any big names?
I don’t know how famous these boxers are in the West - he was the manager of Anastasia Toktaulova (IBF champ 2005-2007, 49 kg) and Maxim Nesterenko (European 1992 WBC welterweight champion, IBF Inter-Continental welterweight champion 1995-1999, European EBU Champion, 60 professional boxing bouts, 48 wins, 28 knockouts).
How intense is the sparring? I have been training with some people from a communist school (China sports university) and we do lots of sparring like that just slap on some 10s and get to it. While you get hit there isn’t really an intent to smash your opponent. You get touched but not busted up. Compared to in the USA it isnt uncommon to have basically full on fights in sparring just with 16s and headgear.
It depends on the gym, but, as a rule, in both light and hard sparrings.
There are two reasons for this:
1. A specific (read 'dumbass') category of fighters who believes that it's not cool/manly to use protective equipment.
2. The disgusting quality of headgear and gloves that Russians used in the late 90s and early 2000s. "Green Hill" pakistan shit with AIBA holo-label if you want to compete officially as an amateur. Now the situation has somewhat improved, more and more boxers began to understand the importance of protective equipment, but anecdotal cases still occur. For example, in my last gym two guys (80 & 82 kg) with experience in the area of a 6 months of training came for sparring friday in Cleto Reyes 8 oz (model for pro-bouts).
Of course, we happily paired them with each other
. By the end of the first round, both faces were covered with bruises and abrasions, fortunately, a knockout did not happen. Finally, they brought normal Title training gloves 16 oz to the next training session.
