When in history have we seen a currently active top 15 world contender who also trains the reigning linear champion in his own weight class! :shock: It's incredible really. I mean Banks can't really have aspirations to become heavyweight champion, if his main job is to make the current heavyweight champion a better fighter! That is, unless he has goals to pick up a strap and share the heavyweight championship with Wlad when vitali retires? :huh A unique situation Banks is in. You knockout seth mitchell again. Who do you call out? Not the champion, the man whom you personally train to be the best! One could even say Banks could fight some of Wlad's future challengers like pulev, fury, or wilder..win or lose..he gets a lot of information out of those fights that he can use when he prepares Wlad Klit against them. Banks is in a great place being Wlad's trainer. He should hang up the gloves for good, and devote himself to W Klit full time. More money, less risk to health, he could even develop himself a stable of young fighters to train in the future.
It's a strange situation. When he announced Banks would be his trainer I wondered if it meant he already had a time frame to get out of boxing and would just keep things as they are for his last few fights. Maybe not though
he just too good not to be in the sport. i got that feeling when he got beat by adamek and was fighting on under cards in germany at heavy...just simple, going through the motions, jab move clinch throw hard punch. he was in a terrible position...and in a great position. you are afilliated with the best team in the world but you can never be champion. you get paid well and in a job that other people strive years into thier 60's to get....and you are there on top but with only 1 man above you. who isnt even your boss but your friend and charge. i hope povetkins promoter thinks he can destroy banks. then mess up bad.
Would be pretty cool to have Banks as a champ because he would be perceived as a vulnerable champ because of his small size, so every fight would be interesting. Besides, Banks is well-spoken and a good example for the youth.
yeah yeh whatever and american and a city dweller. he could be a big seller...he was actually before the adamek fight. people where worried for enzo's safety when banks was in discussions.
It is a good story although Mitchell has a lot to do with it. No one can seriously think Banks is a serious contender to the title because he beat Mitchell.
Dout Banks would have ever fought Wlad to begin with....Trainer or not....They are/were Close friends from workign with Manny so many years...
He wouldn't last too long. Banks has a good right hand, but his level is far below championship quality.
Losing your friend and mentor to cancer, then pulling off the biggest upset of your fighting career and becoming the heavyweight champion of the world's head trainer, then having your brother murdered, all in less than a year? I'm surprised he doesn't have whiplash.
yes and no, he is was a prospect for a while, and a good puncher and a finisher. but mitchell basicly had the wlad title shot in his hands had he beat banks. he seemed to be in working retirement from the sport for a few years. he does have some caliber to him, REAL world class level maybe not. no way does he beat wlad or vitali, but he has a niche market. he could beat povetkin methinks. he is a good boxer and a puncher and not toooo undersized for the division. i am rooting for him mainly because of the seth mitchell hype. a hypetrain there to get a big, heavy, aggressive american fighter into championship levels. all the while banks has been sidelined because he wasnt the aggressive stirring type of fighter 'boxing' supposedly 'needs'. he is the best u.s. fighter in the division...even with wilder koing audley. thompson stopping price was big, but banks mitchell was an example of really showing how far ahead banks was in ability. i dunno. it just feels unfair, that guys like him are pushed to nothing status when if they had been given a push or a new interest with hbo or espn looking to get a champ. they choose the nfl player.