How did the most famous trainers get their starts?

Aren't they usually a type of 'understudy'?

For example, Nacho Beristan was associated with Cuyo Hernandez, trainer of Olivares, Pintor, Zarate etc.

Roach was a boxer with Futch.

Ray Arcel was associated with Stillmans gym in the late 1910s.

Dan and Nick Florio were trainers of a variety of famous boxers, inuding Canzoneri. However, I believe Canzoneri's skill base was developed by amateur trainer, Whitey Ensault (who's basically forgotten) and former champion Pete Herman. Whitey trained a variety of famous fighters that were passed to trainers such as Florio.
https://64parishes.org/entry/whitey-esneault

 

If you haven’t read it already, get the book, “Corner Men” by Ronald Fried. It’s one of the best books ever.

 

Lou Duva and Angelo Dundee were assistants to Charley Goldman

I think we all know where Goldman and Blackburn got their starts

 

Teddy Atlas was a fireman. Not sure how he got into boxing tho.

 

Here is a piece on Charlie Goldman from 1951 in Life. Near the end it even dedicates a page to his young rising star Rocky Marciano.

Pg. 1
https://imgur.com/PrDhN42
Pg.2
https://imgur.com/Ux1Nrjz
Pg. 3
https://imgur.com/z8KUP9P
pg. 4
https://imgur.com/uky8VMD
pg. 5
https://imgur.com/YBzXB41
pg. 6
https://imgur.com/6SBVYxi
Pg. 7
https://imgur.com/s3fVubd
pg. 8
https://imgur.com/NkqxLU2

 

As far as I am aware neither ever worked a corner with Goldman.Dundee used to follow Goldman about gleaning what he could from him,and meeting him after fights to review them over coffee.Duva never impressed me with his abilities except in creating a crisis out of nothing.

 

If trainers aren’t former boxers or former Amateur coaches who complete courses and help run Amateur boxing clubs then they are usually some kind of hanger on from the gyms. Successful coaches are really busy so there is a lot of scope for somebody to help them out. Guys carrying buckets will eventually earn trust then assist other trainers until they are asked to work with a fighter under the coaches directions or a boxer himself wants to be trained by him. But they clearly pay their dues in a kind of apprenticeship picking things up watching coaches and fighters. In professional boxing there is no official qualification other than being respected.

 

no Dundee was some kind of labourer at an airbase carrying sheet metal for riveting in Philadelphia. His brother Chris had a stable of fighters that he ran from an office in New-York. Angelo asked chris to give him a job and Chris allowed him to sleep in his office and work there as a kind of secretary. He took phone calls, typed out records of chris’s fighters on the back of publicity photos and posted them to promoters around the country. He also made appointments for newsmen and began carrying buckets for the cornermen of the fighters on the night of the fights, hung out at Jack Dempseys restaurant with pressmen after the fights to put a word in for Chris Dundee’s fighters. So he learned all about publicity and began to forge relationships with coaches in the corners and began to assist them at the gym during the day. Eventually chris went to Miami taking most of his stable with him and left Angelo a couple of fighters to manage on his own in New-York. That was his start.

 

Awesome!

Goldman wore boxing gloves backwards and used them at punching mitts to help his fighters practice combinations. I wonder if this was something he started, or if he seen it from somewhere else.

The rubber ball exercise looks interesting. I’ve never seen it before, and I wonder if there’s any footage of any of his fighters using that drill.

 

Goldman was one of ,[ if not the originator].of the pad work.
Don Turner , who claimed to have been taught by Goldman said,pad work was"useless,a waste of time" Draw your own conclusions from that.
ps I posted the photo of Goldman with the gloves on backwards 2 years ago.

 

Kenny Weldon started out as a boxer but became a protege of Bill Gore.

 

Through luck