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Sometimes trainers deserve a lot of credit, sometimes it's over hyped. In this particular case I feel that Steward deserved full credit for Wladimir's career and a lot of credit for Lennox's.
As exciting as Wladimir was prior to Manny, his flaws were glaring and easily exploitable by any B Level+ Heavyweight. Some people said that 'if Wlad fought less cautiously he would have knocked out Haye' actually no...
If you put the Sanders years version of Wlad against Haye in 2011, Wlad would have gotten knocked out again. Manny literally turned Wlad's career around and made him into a defensive genius that fully used his height reach size.
Lennox problems lay a lot in his level of preparation and laziness as well as certain weakness in his game prior to Manny. Manny fixed that, but I feel that he also somewhat dropped the ball against Rahman I and Vitali. Now we can blame Lennox and it is in part his fault, but also the coach's fault to a extent that a fighter was allowed to shoot up to 256-260 pounds and come into the ring completely unmotivated.
Lewis 10 days prior to the Johnson (turned into Vitali) fight was 264 on the scales. That screams of lack of dedication- now obviously it was the twilight of his career and maybe Manny's message was just not getting through, but a coach MUST still take some blame for that mess.
As exciting as Wladimir was prior to Manny, his flaws were glaring and easily exploitable by any B Level+ Heavyweight. Some people said that 'if Wlad fought less cautiously he would have knocked out Haye' actually no...
If you put the Sanders years version of Wlad against Haye in 2011, Wlad would have gotten knocked out again. Manny literally turned Wlad's career around and made him into a defensive genius that fully used his height reach size.
Lennox problems lay a lot in his level of preparation and laziness as well as certain weakness in his game prior to Manny. Manny fixed that, but I feel that he also somewhat dropped the ball against Rahman I and Vitali. Now we can blame Lennox and it is in part his fault, but also the coach's fault to a extent that a fighter was allowed to shoot up to 256-260 pounds and come into the ring completely unmotivated.
Lewis 10 days prior to the Johnson (turned into Vitali) fight was 264 on the scales. That screams of lack of dedication- now obviously it was the twilight of his career and maybe Manny's message was just not getting through, but a coach MUST still take some blame for that mess.
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