Boxing Viewpoint: The Trainers

The makers of not just champions, but pound for pound greats.

The name of the game is Boxing. Boxing consist of two men in a square ring going at it, man to man, until either one man is rendered unable to continue or the final bell rings and a winner is declared.

We all know this, right? Right. So obviously, the main focus of the media and fans is…? Well, the fighters of course. Okay, enough of my version of “Boxing For Dummies”. On occasion, a promoter will steal the spotlight. Garnered attention or not, it is something that we can not avoid.

Without the promoters, we obviously have no fights. With the fighters and the promoters receiving all the attention, we tend to forget the guys who are responsible for bringing it all to the point of perfection.

The guys who groom the fighter’s natural ability and sometimes even creates that ability when previously, there had been none. The guys who make the golden boys shine, the mighty mightiest and the executioners lethal.

They are the trainers.

Throughout the years, there have been so many good trainers that I could not begin to name them all. So I decided to pay my respects to the best trainers, in my opinion, to ever grace the sport.

You may disagree with some and agree with others, but either way I think that there is one thing that we will all agree on; without trainers, boxing would not be the sport that it is.

5.) Freddie Roach: The former featherweight has made a transition from fighter to trainer perhaps better then any ex-participant ever. Already inducted into the Hall of Fame, Freddie has not just become a good trainer, but one of this sport’s best, hands down. Yes, he still has a way to go before he reaches legendary status in the eyes of some, but I put him on the list at number five regardless.

Taking the vast achievements he’s already accomplished and those of which he will surely post in the future, Roach is going to be a name synonymous with championship glory as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.

Roach has already worked with such top names as current pound for pound ranked and two division titlist Manny Pacquiao, four division titlist and future Hall of Fame inductee James “Lights Out” Toney, three division champion and future Hall of Fame inductee Johnny Tapia.

Roach has been in the corner of former heavyweight champions Mike Tyson and Michael Moorer. He trained perhaps the highest skilled woman to ever grace the sport in any weight division, Lucia Rijker. Add all that to about a half dozen more quality guys and the resume becomes impressive with a capital I.

At this pace, Freddie could retire in one of the top two positions instead of number five without breaking a sweat. Currently, he is responsible for preparing six division champion Oscar De La Hoya for what may be the biggest showdown of Oscar’s career and what may be the biggest fight this sport has seen in the last five or six years.

That preparation has a date set on the calendar for May 5, 2007, a date that could decide this decade’s best pound for pound fighter. Just being involved in this event alone shows the respect that Roach has earned throughout his years.

The only thing standing in Roach’s way is his battle with Parkinson’s disease. A disease that we have seen deteriorate the Great One himself, Muhammad Ali, to a shell of what he once was. This is a battle we all hope that Freddie continues to stay ahead of on the score cards.

4.) Cus D’Amato: He is responsible for creating the two youngest heavyweight champions of all time; Floyd Patterson and Mike Tyson. In the 1960’s, a fighter he worked with named Jose Torres put Puerto Rican boxers on the light heavyweight map.

D’Amato’s patented “peek a boo” style, when used correctly by the right fighter, is flawless. The man who made Catskill, NY famous was great not because he worked with champions, but created them from the ground up.

Aside from making great champions, D’Amato has also made a top trainer out of ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas, who has a few of his own champions on his resume.

It didn’t appear to matter who Cus worked with, he made them a success. D’Amato’s death, shortly before Tyson’s rise to heavyweight prominence, seemed a tragedy. No one could predict the downward spiral that Tyson would eventually end up falling into after that rise took place.

Some say that if Cus were alive today, Tyson would have gone down as the greatest heavyweight of all time because D’Amato would have kept in on the right path. It’s a shame that we will never know if that belief holds true

3.) Emmanuel Steward: This one is a no brainer. You knew Manny had to be on the list. Any all time top trainer list without Emmanuel Steward on it is not valid in the eyes of any boxing enthusiast. He is the founder of the legendary Kronk gym, which produced some of this sport’s toughest men to ever lace up the gloves.

One of them is a man who perhaps may be the best one punch KO artist of the last 50 years. Thomas “The Hitman” Hearns. Emmanuel Steward turned a skinny 6’1” 147 pound kid into a four division champion and boxing’s most feared brawler under 190 lbs in the 1980’s.

But Tommy was just the tip of the iceberg for Steward. Over the years, one thing was proven time and again. If you can hang at Emmanuel’s Kronk Gym and its extreme conditions, you can succeed and as long as Steward is in your corner, you WILL succeed.

Over the last 25 years, Steward developed or brought to the top such names as former heavyweight champions Lennox Lewis and Tony Tucker, former middleweight champion Gerald “The G-Man” McClellan and ormer WBC, IBF and WBO Featherweight champion Naseem Hamed.

He has also worked with current or former world champions Oscar de la Hoya, Leon Spinks, Aaron Pryor, Jeff Fenech, Oliver McCall, Mike McCallum, Julio Cesar Chavez, Mark Breland and current middleweight champion Jermain Taylor at one point or another through out their careers.

Currently, Steward has IBF Heavyweight Champion Wladimir Klitschko in his stable and possibly, Manny may help Wladimir’s brother and former WBC Heavyweight Champion Vitaly when the elder Klitschko returns to the ring later this year.

Imagine if Steward could help pull off the Klitschko’s dream of becoming the first brother’s to hold world titles simultaneously in the heavyweight division? That would truly be a feat that may never be matched throughout the rest of time.

Steward has helped claim more gold then Fort Knox. His experience and wisdom is enough to bring any willing fighter with a heartbeat to glory. It is for that reason that he will always be boxing royalty.

2.) Angelo Dundee: A student of the game itself who was taught by Lou Stillman, the most knowledgeable of men, Dundee is linked with the words “Pound for Pound” throughout all of time.

Almost all of his fighters had became top performers of not only their era but the modern era, period. Founder of Miami’s Fifth Street Gym along with his brother Chris, Dundee started his affiliation with champions when Carmen Bassilio defeated Tony De Marco for the welterweight title back when fighters put on the gloves just to feed their family’s if nothing else.

In his illustrious career, Dundee has been the man in the corner for Hall of Fame fighters Willie Pastrano, Carmen Basilio, three time welterweight champion Jose Napoles, Hall of Fame inductee Sugar Ramos, former heavyweight champion Jimmy Ellis and former light middleweight champion Ralph Dupas.

But it doesn’t end there; when Big George Forman decided to return to the ring and go after the heavyweight title for the second time in the 1990’s, who did he call? Well, none other than Angelo Dundee of course.

Dundee’s two most famous protege’s are obviously “The Greatest” himself, Muhammad Ali and the second sweetest fighter to ever use the moniker “Sugar”, Ray Leonard.

Dundee guided both to multiple world titles and a level of stardom that they may not have been able to achieve with anyone else but Angelo.

What made Dundee different from all other trainers of this or any other era is that he knew how to buy his fighters time and get them through tough moments in the ring like no one else.

He made Ali fight through the Liston bout when Muhammad’s eyes burned from what is thought to have been an illegal substance on Sonny’s gloves. He helped Ali get through a shaky moment in the first Henry Cooper fight by somehow encouraging Ali’s glove to magically split down the side. He brought a stunned Ray Leonard back to life in the first Tommy Hearns bout and pushed him to a KO victory.

Each of those moments were handled in a completely different fashion and each solution thought up on the drop of a dime. It was that ability that made Dundee who he is today.

Placing Dundee at number two was a hard decision for me but after debating it for some time, there is one man who I had to give the edge to.

He is the man who I believe is the all time greatest trainer to ever grace the sport. He is everything the four men rated just slightly underneath him are and perhaps even a bit more. Here is my number one pick of all time.

1.) Eddie Futch: He was a friend of the great Joe Louis. He trained more champions than Coke a Cola has caffeine. When he passed away in 2001 at the age of 89, the sport mourned the loss of its greatest mentor like a family member.

Futch was a former amateur boxing star who was prevented from turning pro due to a heart murmur so instead of walking away, he decided to apply his knowledge outside the ring to produce the best of the best inside of it.

Among his 21 world champions that he worked with are Bob Foster, Michael Spinks, Riddick Bowe, Trevor Berbick, Ken Norton, Virgil Hill, Marvin Camel, Larry Holmes and Joe Frazier.

He has stood in the corners of James Shuler, Wayne McCullough, Mike McCallum, Bruce Curry, Willie Monroe and even Alexis Arguello. To continue with the men he has associated with on a top level, I would have to produce a small version of the yellow pages.

I don’t think there are any three trainers in this sport put together who can compare to Eddie’s resume now nor do I think there ever will be. The only possible man I could even give the slightest chance to achieving close to what Futch did is Freddie Roach and that is assuming he could make it to the age that Futch did while being able to remain active.

Even if he did at the pace of champions that he has already acquired, it would be a long shot for Freddie to do so.

To actually do Eddie Futch’s career justice, you would have to write not a separate article but full length book. Trying to summarize what he achieved in a few paragraphs just won’t do, so I will stop here and end it with these words.

Eddie Futch was not only the trainer of champions in the ring but he was a champion himself outside of it. Not just in the boxing world, but in life itself. On October 10th, 2001 it wasn’t just the greatest trainer this sport has ever seen that passed away but one of it’s greatest representatives period.

Sadly, men of Eddie’s caliber do not come along often in boxing or life in general.

So agree or disagree, there is my top five list.

I am sure that some readers out there will disagree with the names on it while others will think that the order should be adjusted a bit and a select few will question my sanity of choices all together.

But one thing that I think we will all agree on is that the man outside the ring who does his job six weeks before and 11 minutes during the bouts that bring us to our feet is just as, if not more, important than the guys who do the actual fighting inside the ring.

Because without the trainers, all we have are a few guys standing around with gloves on wondering what to do next.