Eddie Futch

Eddie Futch was an old school guy from Detroit who used to train with the great Joe Louis in the 1930's in an era where the fighters were plentiful, tough, and really learned all facets of the trade. Futch was a pretty accomplished amateur himself, but after a heart murmur derailled any chance at fighting professional, he turned his attention to training fighters.
With his valuable training experiences as a fighter, and his throrough grasp of all facets of boxing, Eddie made an excellent trainer. He was one of the great fight srtategests who ever worked a corner. He had the ability to find one little flaw in one of his fighters oppenents, a flaw that most observers would never notice, and use it against that opponent so his fighter could exploit the weakness.
When Futch had Ken Norton, he noticed Ali always brought his hand to the side of his head after he jabbed. He told Norton to block or slip his jab, then fire his own, because Ali's hand would not be in place to defend Nortons jab. He then told Norton to double up on the jab, and then go right to the body, because Ali would pull back from head shots. Futch felt the bodywork would cause Ali to bring his head down, which was where Norton would connect to the head. And as a result Norton gave Ali hell for three fights and 39 rounds.Futch was just a guy with tremendous knowledge of the game and a great teacher, but most of all a master strategist.

 

He was in Frazier's corner too.

Given the right fighters....Futch would always give Ali hell.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1126578/1/index.htm

 

First time, like many general fans like myself, I heard of Eddie Futch was in the 90s of course when he was with Bowe, Bowe seemed to really respect him bigtime but pity he couldnt control his weight better, must have pissed Futch off no end

 

Wasnt he training Griffin against Jones

 

Yep he trained Griffin

 

I've always liked Angelo Dundee and Emmanuel Steward as trainers,but Mr.Futch was probably the best of all.

 

I have a book called Corner Men: Great Boxing Trainers by Ronald K Fried

It has a chapter on Eddie futch. Unfortunatly I cannot tell you if its any good or not as I have a backlog of boxing books at the mo. Just scanning thru there quickly it looks like 50+ pages if you were that interested.

 

Hopefully he wasn't also training Griffin in Jones-Griffin 2 b'cos Jones very quickly figured him out.

 

He wasn't.

 

I've read this. Very good book.