Top Boxing Trainers behind every great boxer is a great trainer
The saying goes that “behind every good man is a good woman.” This might be true, but it’s also undeniable that behind every great boxer is a great trainer. Without a person there to give them guidance, motivation and a game plan for success, most fighters would wilt under pressure. A boxing manager has to be part father-figure, part manager and part psychologist. They have to know which buttons to push to get the best effort possible out of their fighters at the right time.
The relationship between a boxer and his trainer is sometimes volatile - especially when both men have strong personalities. However, certain trainers have shown the boxing knowledge and training ability to guide a diverse group of fighters to the top of the game. Here is a look at some of the legendary trainers of the sport:
Angelo Dundee: Muhammad Ali was a special fighter who could frustrate, infuriate and madden both opponents and those in his camp. However, there were a few people that he trusted implicitly throughout his life, and one of them was his longtime trainer Angelo Dundee. Despite their differences in background and temperament, Ali believed in Dundee during times when he trusted few other people.
Partially, this came from how Dundee handled Ali’s first title win over Sonny Liston. When Ali became blinded in the middle of the fight, it was clear that Liston’s corner had doused his gloves with liniment so that he would rub his gloves (and the substance) on Ali’s eyes. Sitting in the corner before the fifth round, Ali was unable to see and wanted to quit. Members of the Nation of Islam were in the corner and screaming that a “white man” (Dundee) had poisoned Ali. While all of this was happening, Dundee kept his calm and told Ali to move while his eyesight cleared. Ali did as he was told and wound up winning the title in the seventh round.
Dundee also trained other championship fighters, most notably Sugar Ray Leonard. In 2008, he came out of retirement to work with Oscar De La Hoya in his fight against Manny Pacquiao.
Eddie Futch: If Angel Dundee had a professional rival as a trainer throughout his career, it was Eddie Futch, who seemed to understand better than anyone how to train fighters to go against Ali. Of the five people to defeat Ali as a professional, four of them were trained by Futch: Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick.
As a child, Futch had moved to Detroit from rural Mississippi and gained recognition as a talented amateur boxer. However, a heart murmur prevented him from becoming a professional; instead, he stayed involved in the sport by training other fighters. The first fighter he led to a world championship was Don Jordan, who defeated Virgil Akins for the welterweight title in 1958.
Futch would later train world champions such as Bob Foster, Mike McCallum, Alexis Argüello, Michael Spinks, Marlon Starling, Montell Griffin and Riddick Bowe. He also served as mentor for the amateur boxing career of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy.
Emanuel Steward: Founder of Detroit’s legendary Kronk Gym, Emanuel Steward made a reputation for himself as a trainer of world-class amateur boxers in the 1970s. It made sense, as Steward was a top amateur boxer himself - he won the National Golden Gloves bantamweight championship in 1963. Over time, he transitioned to working with professional fighters, and soon found himself handling some of the biggest names in the sport in the 1970s and 1980s.
Among Steward’s prize pupils was Thomas Hearns, who came to Steward in the 1970s as a talented but slender amateur with a reputation for boxing skills but a lack of power. Over the years, Steward would turn Hearns into a multiple-time world champion and one of the most fearsome punchers of his generation. Steward also worked with former champions such as Lennox Lewis, Gerald McClellan and Wladimir Klitschko. Steward still works as a trainer today along with serving as commentator for HBO Sports.
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