Willie Pastrano enters the matrix...

Awesome never saw that clip. Old mongoose

 

Monday...May 28, 1962...L.A. Sports Arena...it was ruled a draw.....people at ringside and the press thought that Archie pulled it out!

 

Never thought Moore deserved a draw, really. Although I'm not sure the full fight is out there, if it is, I haven't seen it. Pastrano was really talented, he was a perfect example of the "Dundee mold". I do think he gets a bit overrated, though. His best opponents had clearly seen better days, and would've beaten him had they not.

Tommy Hearns probably beats him at 175.

 

Pastrano was not the perfect example of the Dundee mold. Whitey Esneault polished Pastrano's skills. Dundee was more of a hired gun on the side like he usually was. Dundee gets way too much credit as a trainer.

 

I meant in terms of style. The jazzy, over the top out-boxer is what Dundee perfected.

 

Christ, I forgot how fast and mobile he was!

 

I've always been a big fan of, and at times the lone voice in favor of Willie P....yes, he was in the "matrix" vs Moore, and in a masterpiece performance (no matter who you thought won their bout) vs the great Harold Johnson...one of the greatest displays of scientific boxing skills between both participants in a title bout...and this one was 15 non-stop rounds...showcasing Pastrano's speed and tireless legs throughout. In this bout...and maybe to an extent vs Moore, Pastrano at least matches any display of dancing & moving that Muhammad Ali ever showed us (there, chunks of red meat thrown to the Ali devotees and worshippers, haha)
As a counterpoint though, let is be said that the training habits and work ethic of Mr. Pastrano often left much to be desired...and being in the kind of great shape that he was in vs Moore and especiallly H. Johnson were anomalies to put it mildly, unfortunately.

 

Where was this footage? Never saw it on YouTube? Brings me hope there are more clips or fights out there not yet in the public. Need more Moore fights Baker, Nino, Charles 2, etc. so many good fights not available which is strange because he was a top contender then

 

Exactly, Esneault was great at spotting fleet-footed fighters and teaching them skills to take full advantage of their natural talent. Before Pastrano, he trained Maxie and Bernard Docusen and Ralph Dupas, for instance. This is not to say that his bag of teaching ricks was limited to teaching this one style of boxing as evidenced by the styles of other fighters he taught, including Freddie Little. I don't know of a direct connection between Esneault and Cassius Muhammad Ali Clay, but he did pass some of his fighters on to Angelo Dundee for management, with Pastrano, Dupas, and the Docusen brothers being among them. So, it's more than probable that Dundee picked up the tricks of the fleet-footed style either directly from Esneault or at least from the fighters he inherited from Esneualt and then passed those tricks on to Ali and Ellis and even Luis Rodriguez.

 

I disagree.

We can see similarities in a number of Dundee fighters — Ali and Dupas and Pastrano and Jimmy Ellis and SR Leonard and more — who all bounced on the balls of their feet and used lateral movement and flashy combinations.

Hell of a coincidence if you ask me.

Pastrano would not be the first or last fighter ever to have a day-to-day trainer who brought them up as part of the team and a ‘hired gun’ as you call Dundee who set the style parameters and polished them. Apart from the homegrown Kronk guys, Emanuel Stewart wasn’t with every boxer he ever worked with every day between camps either. Does that make him an ‘overrated hired gun’? I don’t think so.

Dundee was with two of the greatest — one being THE greatest and the other, SRL, being arguably the greatest of the generation that followed. As well as being a trainer associated with numerous world champs.

For some reason you want to take credit away from him but there’s no basis. I’ve seen you make the laughable argument that Angelo’s brother was such a major, influential force in boxing that anyone would gladly pay Angelo a fee just to have Chris Dundee — a local promoter in Miami who never, ever in any way came close to being a national (much less international) power broker (like Don King or Bob Arum or dozens of other promoters) — on their side. It’s a freaking joke as Chris didn’t promote a ton of fights of these exceptional champs yet somehow he’s the puppet master pulling the strings. Mostly Chris Dundee could get them get-started fights early in their career to keep them busy, but when they ‘made it’ he wasn’t ever part of the picture and the big-boy promoters took over.

I reject your thesis. It’s like saying Ray Arcel was an overrated trainer because he didn’t train all the title challengers he seconded every day from the moment they put on gloves through the time they hung them up, and he wasn’t with Duran between fights and usually came into camp in the last week (or few weeks for big fights), which is documented.

 

Dupas was an Esneault fighter as well. Despite all of the press Dundee didnt train Ali. Ali was a mover before he ever came into contact with Dundee and afterwards he borrowed some of his tricks from Pastrano. So no coincidence there. Ellis, like Ali, was trained by Joe Martin and Fred Stoner originally and Luis Sarria later when Dundee was supposedly training him. Ive got hours and hours of footage from the Main Street gym of all of these guys. Rodriguez, Fernandez, Otero, Ali, Ellis, Pastrano, etc. Sarria is always the one in the corner directing things. When Dundee appears hes giving interviews. You say these guys were so happy to pay him for supposedly doing nothing but Ali and Leonard both cut Dundee's pay down substantially to reflect his real input. Leonard patterned his style and career off of Ali, again before he met Dundee, so no its not a coincidence, its cross pollination. But Dundee, even by his own admission, was more of a strategist brought in during the last couple of weeks of camp to fine tune things. He was happy to take the credit and accept the press but by and large every fighter you mentioned as having a "Dundee" style had another trainer handling the day to day aspects, mainly Luis Sarria. I couldnt care less if you reject my thesis. Youve shown constantly that you dont know your ass from elbow when it comes to this sport. Your diatribe about Chris Dundee alone illustrates that. You might want to ask yourself why Chris Dundee was one of the few independent promoters who not only kept boxing thriving in his domain for decades but who was also able to get regular television dates during the IBC monopoly and afterwards until the late 1970s. I'll let you ponder that in your ignorance. So explain to me why you get your panties in a twist when I point out that Dundee took fighters with an already developed style BEFORE he ever met them when you say they typify the "Dundee style" as if there was one and as if they patterned their style off his teaching?

 

Ali and Ellis were both utilizing footwork well before they hooked up with Dundee. Afterwards their day to day training, and Rodriguez as well was left to Luis Sarria who has been unfairly remembered as Ali's "masseuse".

 

You exposed yourself with saying Leonard and Ali cut Dundee’s take to reflect his lack of value or influence in camp.

They didn’t do that when they were making thousands. They did it when they were making millions. They moved him from a percentage deal (which adds up to overpaying ANY trainer/manager when you get into the territory of multi-million-dollar purses) to a fee or per-fight payment system.

Thomas Hearns had a 50 percent manager/trainer deal with Emanuel Stewart when he started out. He later cut that down. Does that mean that Thomas decided that Manny didn’t really contribute all that much? No, it means that paying him $2M of a $4M purse was ridiculous. Same with Leonard and Ali.

(And Lennox Lewis already knew how to box when he brought in Steward, Klitschko too, so I guess Manny is the most overrated guy in history? That’s not how it works. You bring in the specialist who tweaks your game and shows you a better way to utilize your tools because you want to get back on top or stay on top — just like Tiger Woods brought in a new swing coach after he set records at the Masters in arguably the greatest golf tournament performance of all time.)

Being a strategist as a trainer is quite a valuable thing if the fighter wants to win fights and stay on top. When you’ve had 20 or 40 or 50 fights they’re not teaching you how to jab anymore. To act like that’s a minor thing underscores your lack of understanding.

You seem to really believe Dundee’s only role in training boxers was doing interviews ... because all you HAVE is interviews. Of course you’re going to look at your precious film collection and assume nothing went on that wasn’t captured on film you have or have seen. Does it occur to you that they only open camp to media for what they want the press to see? Get a bit of sparring and mitt or bag work and then interviews. That’s how that works. They don’t say, ‘Hey, come in and film everything we do here.’ So yes Dundee had others who helped but who do you see in that corner when it matters? You think Luis Sarria was the mastermind and Dundee sat in the corner chewing on a toothpick — more like Dundee mapped out what to emphasize and Luis had the ‘labor’ role — just like people use mitt men and such. You’re seeing a guy attending a corner between rounds during sparring and thinking he’s the head coach.

There absolutely was a Dundee style or approach and you see similarities in most of the top boxers he worked with for a long period of time (not so much the Pinklon Thomas types who brought him in for a week for obviously reasons). No one says those guys were stiff-legged plodders and Dundee made them ballerinas, but Dundee molded them to use their movement into their games to great success. It’s absolutely NOT a coincidence.

Chris Dundee was a fine independent local promoter. He was not a mover and shaker to the point that boxers signed with his brother merely to pay tribute fees to have him on their side, lol. This isn’t Don King’s son serving as manager for guys Don King promoted — because Ali’s biggest fights and Leonard’s biggest fights and all those other guys’ big fights, with few exceptions, were NOT promoted by Chris Dundee. Chris had basically nothing to do with their careers apart from some starting-out fights. You’ve made it out that Chris Dundee was some kind of super-connected guy who if you signed his brother you got vaulted into the big money, and it wasn’t that way at all.

Yeah, you do your usual ‘attack as default mode’ and act like you’re the only one who knows anything but give me some FACTS — show me all the big Ali and Leonard fights promoted by Chris Dundee to prove me wrong; show me Sarria taking over the corner when the going got tough or any evidence that he was the mastermind who made Leonard or Ali. Tell me why all these great fighters didn’t skip the middleman and just hire the bucket-carrier who ran the day-to-day gym operations ... that alone shows your lack of understanding of how things work — you think the assistant coach is the real power and Bill Belichick is a puppet. What percentage were Ali and Leonard giving Sarria at the point that they put a cap on Dundee because he had managed them into position to make millions? You wanna tell me they took away part of Angelo’s cut and gave it to the gym manager, lol?

I’ve pointed out your basic flaw before: you think because you do research that you have the first clue in how to deduct truth from a collection of observations. You do not. You can watch all the ‘media day’ film you want to and you still have no clue what went on in camp after the media left.

Go watch film from NFL football practices and what you mostly get is the strength/conditioning coach leading them warm-up and some basic drills. So because the strength coach is on film, you conclude he’s the ‘secret’ head coach. When all he’s there to do is stretch them out before practice.

It ain’t that way at all, because we also see those guys super-successful with Dundee still around and all of these others who did fine jobs in taking their fighters from Point A to Point B out of the picture.

 

Yes, I think it was more that the whole boxing culture in Miami was very familiar with and open to the speedster style and there was a pipeline or at least a connection between New Orleans and Miami of which Esneault was an important conduit. I'm not a student of what went on down there. I'm just connecting the dots up here in Seattle. Dundee was a manager/trainer in the true sense of both words. I think he managed his fighters' business affairs, set up their training regimens, established strategies, gave corner advice, and oversaw a staff of trainers made up of people like Sarria, Lou Gross and probably many others. Angelo and his brother Chris as promoter really had a smooth operation going down there in Miami.