Tweet
Dundee: Legends Come Just Once In A Lifetime
By Lyle Fitzsimmons, Boxing Contributing Editor
POSTED: 9:48 pm EDT October 17, 2007
Philadelphia, PA -- (Sports Network) - Here's a little advice from Angelo Dundee.
Don't spend any time pining away for the next Muhammad Ali, Ray Leonard or Joe Louis to save the sport from its perceived (by some) doldrums, because it's not going to happen.
"That's the mistake people make," the legendary trainer said, in a Tuesday evening phone interview. "They keep waiting for a guy to come along who acts like and sounds like and fights like those guys, but they don't realize that every fighter and every individual is different. They all have different outlooks and they all do things in different ways.
"Once they come along, the cast is broken and you'll never see it again."
Dundee, now 86, is once again making the rounds with the release of his latest book - "My View from the Corner: A Life in Boxing+ - written with fellow Hall of Fame member Bert Sugar and featuring a foreword by his most famous in-ring charge, Ali, with whom he worked big fights from the 1960s through the 1980s.
"I pay attention to everything. I watch all the fights I can and I go to the cards here in Tampa, where they put on about one a month," he said. "I feel obligated to watch every fight because someone might ask me a question about something, and I want to be able to give them an honest answer if they do."
The 336-page collection touches on Dundee's relationships with his 15 world champions, including Ali, Leonard, Carmen Basilio and Willie Pastrano, and tells behind-the-scenes tales of some of the most famous events in the sport's history - including Ali and George Foreman's "Rumble in the Jungle" and the still-controversial Leonard-Hagler decision in Las Vegas.
Still, in spite of the classic and sometimes bitter rivalries his fighters had with noteworthy adversaries like Joe Frazier and Thomas Hearns, Dundee said Tuesday that a more collegial relationship existed between him and the trainers of those foes, even alongside the intense competition.
"Sure, you'd try to lick each other when you had guys against them in the ring, but we'd spend far more time helping each other," he said, relating a little-known story involving Emanuel Steward and Hearns, who fought on the undercard of Ali's forgettable December 1981 swan song at the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre in Nassau, Ba*****.
"Emanuel's kid had fought a guy from Philadelphia (veteran middleweight Ernie Singletary) that night and got cut, and he came to me at the hotel, where I was talking with a friend of mine who was a plastic surgeon. He asked him to take a look at the cut, and the guy wound up working on him all night right there in the hotel room while we ordered sandwiches.
"He got 106 stitches and it saved the kid's career."
Fittingly, Dundee will be on the scene for a book-signing prior to this generation's epic welterweight showdown in Vegas, where unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. will face unbeaten Ricky Hatton on Dec. 8 at the MGM Grand - some 26 years after Leonard and Hearns met for the first time as unbeatens at Caesars Palace.
And not surprisingly, he's got an opinion.
"I think Ricky Hatton's the best 140-pounder in the world and a great fighter, no question," he said. "But he's fighting not only the best welterweight out there, but the best fighter in the world today in Floyd Mayweather. I think Mayweather wins it, going away
By Lyle Fitzsimmons, Boxing Contributing Editor
POSTED: 9:48 pm EDT October 17, 2007
Philadelphia, PA -- (Sports Network) - Here's a little advice from Angelo Dundee.
Don't spend any time pining away for the next Muhammad Ali, Ray Leonard or Joe Louis to save the sport from its perceived (by some) doldrums, because it's not going to happen.
"That's the mistake people make," the legendary trainer said, in a Tuesday evening phone interview. "They keep waiting for a guy to come along who acts like and sounds like and fights like those guys, but they don't realize that every fighter and every individual is different. They all have different outlooks and they all do things in different ways.
"Once they come along, the cast is broken and you'll never see it again."
Dundee, now 86, is once again making the rounds with the release of his latest book - "My View from the Corner: A Life in Boxing+ - written with fellow Hall of Fame member Bert Sugar and featuring a foreword by his most famous in-ring charge, Ali, with whom he worked big fights from the 1960s through the 1980s.
"I pay attention to everything. I watch all the fights I can and I go to the cards here in Tampa, where they put on about one a month," he said. "I feel obligated to watch every fight because someone might ask me a question about something, and I want to be able to give them an honest answer if they do."
The 336-page collection touches on Dundee's relationships with his 15 world champions, including Ali, Leonard, Carmen Basilio and Willie Pastrano, and tells behind-the-scenes tales of some of the most famous events in the sport's history - including Ali and George Foreman's "Rumble in the Jungle" and the still-controversial Leonard-Hagler decision in Las Vegas.
Still, in spite of the classic and sometimes bitter rivalries his fighters had with noteworthy adversaries like Joe Frazier and Thomas Hearns, Dundee said Tuesday that a more collegial relationship existed between him and the trainers of those foes, even alongside the intense competition.
"Sure, you'd try to lick each other when you had guys against them in the ring, but we'd spend far more time helping each other," he said, relating a little-known story involving Emanuel Steward and Hearns, who fought on the undercard of Ali's forgettable December 1981 swan song at the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre in Nassau, Ba*****.
"Emanuel's kid had fought a guy from Philadelphia (veteran middleweight Ernie Singletary) that night and got cut, and he came to me at the hotel, where I was talking with a friend of mine who was a plastic surgeon. He asked him to take a look at the cut, and the guy wound up working on him all night right there in the hotel room while we ordered sandwiches.
"He got 106 stitches and it saved the kid's career."
Fittingly, Dundee will be on the scene for a book-signing prior to this generation's epic welterweight showdown in Vegas, where unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. will face unbeaten Ricky Hatton on Dec. 8 at the MGM Grand - some 26 years after Leonard and Hearns met for the first time as unbeatens at Caesars Palace.
And not surprisingly, he's got an opinion.
"I think Ricky Hatton's the best 140-pounder in the world and a great fighter, no question," he said. "But he's fighting not only the best welterweight out there, but the best fighter in the world today in Floyd Mayweather. I think Mayweather wins it, going away
Comment