Are there any other boxing trainers on this site??? Ice Interview with trainer "Iceman" John Scullywww.secondsout.com 10/2008 SecondsOut: 1.) Tell me, how does defeat impact the trainer in comparison to it's effects on the fighter? ICE: I know for me the wins and the losses are really something else. I can remember being involved in fights as a trainer, two in particular with Lawrence Clay-Bey, where afterwards I was so physically and emotionally drained and worn down that I had to go back to the hotel and rest afterwards. I have experienced some awesome victories as a trainer and some devastating defeats, too, and I can tell you that I have had questions pop into my head where I questioned if I wasn't a good trainer. Trainers are like fighters, wins bring confidence and pride, losses bring doubts and questions. I can say this, though. A good trainer is a good trainer regardless. I hate it when a guy will see some of his boxers lose fights and people will begin to aggressively question and doubt his training prowess and skills. I mean, take Buddy McGirt, for example. Some of his fighters have suffered defeats in recent times but he is still the same guy who trained Antonio Tarver to that unreal stoppage of Roy Jones, right? It's not like his knowledge of the game has left his brain or something. I always say that circumstances on a given day mean everything in boxing. I am still the same guy who trained Jose Rivera to the WBA 154 pound title and Buddy is still the guy who steered Antonio to beat Roy. It's just that there are so many other things involved. Styles of fighters, the fighters weight, his mental state, maybe he has the flu. Maybe his marriage is in trouble at the time. Maybe the other guy just has his number. I mean, there are certain boxers who can go into certain fights and it wouldn't matter if Eddie Futch, Ray Arcel and Georgie Benton all trained him for it. SecondsOut: 2.) Under which circumstances do you feel a loss is the fighter's fault or the trainer's fault? Any specific examples from your career? ICE: I like to think we are in it together but for me I know that I had losses in my professional career and I had two different trainers in particular who never once even began to let it into their minds that their training methods or lack of something in regard to their instruction giving skills was their fault. A lot of trainers feel that victories were always because of them and losses were because of the fighter. I could certainly point to specific times in my work with certain pro and amateur fighters where my input definitely, 100 percent or sure, steered them towards a victory that realistically might not have happened if I weren't there. But, truth be told, there have also been times where I had a guy and the certain punches he used and certain moved he used to win a particular fight were more his doing than mine SecondsOut: 3.) What is your approach to a fighter that is clearly losing and over matched? How do you keep them motivated or in the fight? How honest do you need to be? ICE: Honestly is a very subjective thing. You sometimes have to be brutally honest in the corner, sometimes you need to lighten and bend the truth a little bit. It all depends on the particular boxer. Some boxers are very frail mentally while others as rock solid. It depends on the guy. Sometimes if a guy is losing and I know that victory is very unlikely I will touch on some other factor to keep them in it. I mean, sometimes a victory is in the eye of the beholder. I could keep a guy going just on pride alone. It's kind of like in "Raging Bull" when Lamotta tells Robinson, after he stopped him in the 14th, "You never got me down, Ray. You never got me down," To him that was a source of pride and in his mind of type of victory. His cornermen no doubt knew that was the type of guy he was and I bet something in regard to that way of thinking was used in the corner that night to keep LaMotta in it as long he was. SecondsOut: 4.) Can a trainer hit a slump just like a fighter can? ICE: Definitely. For me, I can point to certain fights where I felt my words in the corner were really sharp, really accurate. I have impressed myself on occasion. There have been other times, though, where it was like I jumbled my thoughts and my words, too. Like I was having a bad night the same way a boxer would. SecondsOut: 5.) How do you keep yourself sharp as a trainer? Do you have a routine in preparing for a fight? ICE: I think that me, as a trainer, if I have a strong point it is the fact that I have been a boxer before and I can relate to any fighter in the world because of that. Any situation they will face, I have faced it before, too, and I use that knowledge to guide me. I look at things I did successfully in the past but also I use times when I failed to get certain points across to anyone I might be trying to help get ahead. So that's why I still spar as much as I can to this day because the best way for me to keep my finger on the pulse of the fighters is to keep experiencing being one. So far this year I have already sparred over 200 rounds so being in the ring keeps my memory of what these guys go through very in tune and sharp.
Yordenis Ugas A lightweight who was/is a member of this years National Team. He lost during the Olympic Games in Beijing in the semi-finals (11:7 against a french boxer). He will most probably be in the 2012 team as well.
So many Cubans were GREAT amateurs...including many who never became known to Americans. The greatest of all? Probably 1980's middleweight Angel Espinosa
Yeah I love Cuban boxers. They are so polished and technically sound. Espinosa... never heard of him before, I'm afraid that was a bit before my time.. I will google him. How about Ariel Hernandez?
Well, put it this way, as great as Ariel was, ANGEL ESPINOSA was better...in 1988 Mike Katz of the N.Y. Daily News saw Angel box in a USA-Cuba meet and he wrote the next day that Espinosa could challenge Sugar Ray Leonard for the WBC 168 pound title that same month...that might be a stretch but...I know a trainer who told me other than Roy Jones Jr, Angel is the best fighter he has ever seen box in person. Angel dominated fom 139 pounds (he stopped Meldrick Taylor in 1983 at the Junior World's) to 165 (beat Henry Maske THREE times)
I overheard your conversation on Buddy McGirt the other day and how it's absolutely not his fault his fighters are not successful. I was pretty disappointed to hear that, it's one thing that his fighters lose all their fights (the vast majority as of late..) we can't really put all the blame on him for that, he's on a bad roll. But realistically, looking at it there's a much bigger problem than that, all of Buddys fighters decline physically after joining him (We've seen Brewster in the worst shape of his life with Buddy, we saw Rahman in bad shape and many others). It's a trainers task to keep his fighters in tip top shape, Buddy is obviously falling short in doing that. Look at other trainers like Freddy Roach who won't train his fighters unless they give it their best to get into peak shape physically.
The thing is, looking at it from both sides, a trainer can only do so much... a trainer cnnot babysit a fighter 24/7... he has to do homework, his roadwork, extra crunches, stay disciplined etc...there ARE many aspects of training that are beyond the general control of the trainer....and they can impact the fight and the outcome in a huge way... there are many reasons why people lose fights, they arent always the trainers fault but they arent always the fighters fault either.
