By Edward Chaykovsky
In recent weeks, WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley has been singing the praises of his new trainer Teddy Atlas.
Bradley parted ways with Joel Diaz, who trained the former two-division world champion since his pro debut. The partnership generated a lot of big fights and five world titles.
Their split was not friendly, with both sides claiming wrongdoing. Bradley (32-1-1, 12KOs) and Atlas will have their first fight together on November 7th, when Tim steps in the ring with former champion Brandon Rios in an HBO televised main event from the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
Bradley spent his career with Joel Diaz, but the boxer wasn't satisfied with the way their camps were playing out and decided to make a switch a few months ago.
He says Atlas, best known for working with heavyweight champions like Mike Tyson, Shannon Briggs, Alexander Povetkin and Michael Moorer, taught him more than he ever knew in a few short days.
"Now it’s different, now I have Teddy Atlas in my corner and let me tell you, training camp has been amazing. I’ve learned so much in three days than I have in ten years that I’ve been with Joel Diaz. Joel Diaz is a great trainer, no disrespect in any way but I’ve learned so much of the game and I’ve learned what my mistakes are, I learned why I’ve been getting him with certain shots. I’ve learned when I need to be in certain position, why I need to be on the inside when I’m fighting, where my head needs to be, Bradley told On The Ropes Boxing Radio .
Diaz hopes their relationship works out, because he has not intention of ever working with Bradley again. He says the door is beyond closed for Bradley and Diaz won't entertain the idea of working with him again.
"That door is completely closed for Bradley, and I added a couple of locks and I threw away the keys, so that basically says everything. The way it was approached, I don’t think it was in a professional way. If you want to leave the door open, you have to approach the right way as a professional," Diaz told On The Ropes Boxing Radio .
"You can’t just approach a person and tell them, 'You know what, things have not been right,' when in reality they have been. In reality the things have been right. The problem was not Bradley and me, it was everybody else around him."
What bothers Diaz the most, is that Bradley, after a career long relationship, fired him by way of a voicemail message.
"When Tim tells me, 'I’ll get back to you and we’ll figure out what’s gonna happen,' and then I get a phone call from him and I didn’t pick up the call because it was a blocked number, and I get a voicemail saying that it wasn’t gonna work out because of his wife and his brother in law and that he was gonna move on and find another trainer. That was his approach, and to me that was very unprofessional," Diaz explained.
"That’s fine, he can move on and do whatever he wants, but if things don’t go right with his next trainer and he wants to come back, his doors are completely shut. The doors to him are completely shut and I added a couple of locks and threw away the keys, so there is no reason to come back and try to find an open the door, because there’s no more door for him."
