By Thomas Gerbasi
Teddy Atlas hasn’t even been asked a question, but he’s already started talking. He chuckles, but there’s nothing light-hearted about the words that come out of his mouth as he discusses the April 9 rubber match between his fighter, Timothy Bradley, and Manny Pacquiao.
“It’s the way I get,” he said. “It’s part of the territory. I’m concerned, as always, about the responsibility I’m here for. I’m at a beautiful place in Palm Springs, and I don’t complain, I’m privileged, I’m blessed, I get all that. To have my family and to have the opportunity that I have, I never discount how fortunate I am, and I have a family to share it with and I have a great human being as a fighter to want to do this. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re doing something that has a risk to it and something that has a great responsibility to it, and I feel it every day.”
If you talked to Atlas before he agreed to work with Bradley last year, the odds of Atlas getting those feelings again were slim and none. Simply put, he was content with his commentating gig for ESPN, and really had no desire to man the corner for anyone again. He had invested too much and been burned too many times to want to go through it again. It’s what makes Atlas who he is. There is nothing or everything. There is no halfway. And when there is no halfway, if things go south, as they often do in boxing, it hits guys like Atlas harder than most.
So he was done. No more Tyson, Briggs, Moorer or Povetkin. Then Bradley came calling. And Atlas still wasn’t convinced. Until he was.
“I don’t know what’s happened to me,” he said quietly. “It’s a unique responsibility. It’s like being a parent again and it’s the closest description I can give anyone. It’s not like a football coach or a basketball coach, where a few guys can be off and you’re still okay. You’ve got one guy and a certain amount of time to get it just right for one guy and one night. There’s a lot in the balance. I came back because my daughter reminded me of what I do and then I met Tim before I made a decision and I saw someone I could trust this business again with and maybe even feel good about it, which I had lost. But now, there’s a transition. I don’t want to be all (Laughs) sappy here, but I don’t know, I care too much about this kid maybe. I don’t know how to even explain it. I care about all my fighters, but there’s a little bit of a difference here, and that’s it. I don’t want to fail.”
The first training camp and fight couldn’t have gone better, as the 32-year-old Bradley easily stopped Brandon Rios in nine rounds.
“In the Rios fight and throughout camp, I couldn’t have been happier,” Atlas said. “He was the one who made himself get it. He was smart enough and had the ability to grasp it, embrace it, and go into a dangerous place and execute it.”
Surviving in that dangerous place was probably the greatest victory as far as Atlas and Bradley’s family were concerned, because “Desert Storm” has never been one to shy away from a war. His concussion issues following his Fight of the Year win over Ruslan Provodnikov in 2013 were well-documented by Bradley himself, and while he has always had the ability to box his way to victory, if you hit him, he wants to hit you back three times in return. Immediately. That was Atlas’ biggest challenge, and it still might be.
“I’m happy with him every day,” he said. “Even when he doesn’t pull it off in the gym some days and doesn’t do exactly what I’ve tried to lay out what I think is the best way to approach this particular fight, I’m still happy with him. I’m not always happy with the results, but I’m happy with his attitude and his trust. I’m scared by his trust sometimes because it’s a special thing when you get somebody’s trust, especially somebody in this business who’s been through the ringer in a business that’s very difficult and very tough. So when you get their trust, it means something special.”
Atlas is a long way from his home in Staten Island, New York as he works with Bradley on the other side of the country. He’s been down this road before, and it never gets easier. But he’s here now, and there’s a job to do.
“I miss home, but it’s not just being away,” he said. “It’s the way you’re away and what you’re here for, and not having a crystal ball (Laughs), which none of us have. If you care about what you do and you care about how it affects other people – in this case, your family and also your fighter and his family – it’s not just being away. It’s what you’re away doing. It’s knowing that the only way this is worthwhile and the only reason you’re here is to take care of this fighter, and make sure that he’s going to be okay.”
Anguished might be the best way to describe the way Atlas sounds at this point in training camp. It’s that time when you wonder if everything is right, if the plan you’ve come up with is the right one, and if it is, will your fighter execute it against one of the best fighters of this era. After going through this time and time again, and now doing it after he thought he was finished, does he ever wonder why he came back?
“Yeah, all the time,” he chuckles. “I just don’t want to fail Tim. I never want to fail my family, my obligation to my job, my responsibility to my craft, my profession. That’s very important. I put a lot of years into it to try to set a certain kind of standard, and hopefully I have, and I try to keep that standard. But I just want to do my job one more time with Tim and hope to God that I can do it the way I’ve done it in the past and hopefully in a way that it will result in what I want it to result in for everybody.”
So in Atlas’ eyes, what is the perfect scenario for Bradley-Pacquiao III? A one-punch knockout in the first 30 seconds would be nice, but not realistic.
“He (Bradley) can hurt you and he’s special, but you can’t count on him being that kind of a knockout puncher,” said the New Yorker, but he does have a vision in mind for something that would make him smile on April 9.
“Controlling things and dictating in a sure manner, almost an aggressive manner without being aggressive,” Atlas said. “And knowing where the control begins. It’s not too soon, because that means we’re reaching in for him, and it’s not too late, that means he’s in to us. So understanding what the landscape needs to be and what we need to create it to be for us to have control to win this fight.”
And make no mistake about it, Atlas wants to win.
“I’m human,” he said. “I have a competitive nature to me, especially after all the years and all the different scenarios I’ve been in. The concerns are always the same, that you want to just do your job and you want to do it right and you want to get the results. I’d be a liar if I told you that none of that stuff plays into it or touches me. We all should have some kind of competitive spirit, and you recognize when you’re in with the best and you recognize when it’s different and when the stakes are higher. I could stand there and say ‘ah, it’s all the same,’ but while your responsibility is the same, you do recognize the difference, and that’s where some of the angst comes. You understand that you’re at this place with this special fighter and you understand how that changes the equation and raises the stakes.”
That’s the place where Teddy Atlas is at home.
