I Love Teddy Atlas But…is wrong to continually criticize Tyson and Wlad Klitschko

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I Love Teddy Atlas But…

I Love Teddy Atlas. He’s an excellent commentator to listen to, he’s one of the great voices of the sport, he is always a fascinating interview subject with an abundance of stories and examples. His book was terrific too. But there is a big “but” coming. I think Teddy Atlas is wrong to continually criticize Mike Tyson and Wladimir Klitschko, as he frequently does, for what he says are their mental weaknesses.



Come on now, Teddy, if Mike Tyson and Wladimir Klitschko have mental weaknesses as boxers in their primes, it’s the equivalent to a paper cut. Mike Tyson and Wladimir Klitschko are two of the greatest heavyweight champions in the history of the sport. You don’t get to the top of a brutal and violent and unforgiving business as heavyweight boxing by being mentally weak, or extremely vulnerable to be taken to a weak area and then knocked out. It takes incredible amounts of physical and mental strength, self-belief, talent and dedication to be the heavyweight champ – and stay the champ.


I believe Teddy Atlas is wrong when he criticizes Mike Tyson and Wladimir Klitschko – wrong, misleading and inaccurate. Sure, Mike Tyson and Wladimir Klitschko have flaws and suffered failures in their careers, but as fighters in their primes, they were/are absolutely devastating, dominant wrecking machines, in their own ways. Perhaps even unbeatable.


To say that Tyson was a bully and could not deal with fighters like Douglas and Holyfield and Lewis because they stood up to his intimidation is just not accurate. Tyson was once a great fighter – in the physical and psychological areas – but through poor personal decisions, being exploited and losing his focus and discipline – Tyson declined and became a shell of himself and a beatable fighter. It wasn’t in the cards for Mike Tyson to maintain his level of excellence beyond 1986-88. He wasn’t weak in any way, he just didn’t have the staying power or longevity of unique people like Louis, Marciano, Ali or Holmes.


In the case of Wladimir Klitschko, he is not mentally weak or vulnerable to be taken to a weak area. He was still a learning, growing fighter in his losses to Purrity, Sanders and Brewster. Now he has fully matured and learned from the mistakes he made – mental preparation and physical execution-wise in those fights and he is now a totally devasting wrecking machine who has barely even lost a round on any scorecards in five years. With the help of Emanuel Steward, Klitschko has fixed his errors and strengthened his weak areas.


If there are still weak areas that are vulnerable in Dr. Steelhammer, why wasn’t Teddy Atlas able to train, develop and build his fighter, Alexander Povetkin, to be able to take advantage of those supposed weak areas? Atlas has been working with Povetkin for about a year now, you’d think he’d be able to coach Povetkin to do the job, which he makes seem so simple.
And if Wladimir Klitschko is so mentally weak and vulnerable, why are David Haye, Nikolay Valuev running scared to safer fights?


If Klitschko is just a glass-jawed pretender with a great jab and right hand, then why doesn’t Teddy Atlas talk Shaq or Dwyane Wade or Ray Lewis or Kobe Bryant or Brandon Jacobs into trying boxing in their off-seasons, surely those physical and athletic specimens would be able to take advantage of the mentally weak Klitschko, right? No, they would not. They would all be brutally knocked out for ten counts by Klitschko, even worse than Peter, Chambers and Brock got it. Even if Teddy Atlas taught them boxing for 20 hours a day for six months straight.


To try to say such a finely tuned, masterful boxing machine like Wladimir Klitschko still has mental weakness is nonsense. Pure, utter nonsense.
Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey got knocked out early in their boxing careers, you don’t read the historians ever saying they were mentally weak, do you?


Teddy Atlas, you are a good man and a legend in boxing, but you are prone to making mistakes and misjudgements, like every one else. You are doing the sport a disservice and an injustice, every time you say a top heavyweight champion like Wladimir Klitschko is mentally weak.
“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as WE are.” –Anais Nin




http://www.boxinginsider.com/headlines/i-love-teddy-atlas-but/

 

Ruddock especially since this was post Rooney and post Douglas.

I can't quite remember which article it was, either an S.I. article or another article floating around (and I'll probably track it down at some point)...but anyway...it said that Ruddock wanted his match so bad that he walked up to Tyson, grabbed his arm and basically said I'm next. That's how he guaranteed his fight with Tyson. And even after losing to Tyson, he wanted more.

 

Yeah, he often points his finger to the guy he stares at in the mirror every morning.

 

Teddy Atlas: Drama Queen

By Johnny Walker

Famed boxing trainer Teddy Atlas seems to be a natural trouble magnet, so his latest problems with the camp of his fighter, WBA “Regular” heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin, are in many ways par for the course.

Atlas has been quoted in recent days saying he is very “disappointed” in Alexander Povetkin, a fighter who he has always claimed in the past is a man of sterling character. Now, because he can’t see the sense in coming to the United States, a place he dislikes, to train for an upcoming fight (with cruiserweight champion Marco Huck) to be held in Germany, Povetkin is suddenly, according to Atlas, a bad guy.

Anyone who has followed the career of Teddy Atlas can hardly be surprised at this sudden change of heart. It seems that there are very few people on the planet who measure up to Atlas’s exceedingly high standards, and even less fighters who make the grade. Atlas all too often is a drama queen who quickly gets crushes on certain fighters, romances them and then falls out of love almost as fast, as the reality that everyone (except Teddy) on this planet is imperfect sets in.

And when Teddy Atlas falls out of love with a fighter, the results can be ugly. For example, Atlas wrote in his book, Atlas: From the Streets to the Ring, that he actually wanted to kill his former charge, the Canadian boxer Donny “Golden Boy” Lalonde, after their partnership ended at Lalonde’s request. Atlas admits that he took a gun and waited outside of the fighter’s apartment in New York City with the intention of gunning him down. Luckily for Lalonde, he wasn’t home at the time.

“If he had opened the door, he was dead. I would have pulled the trigger, turned around, and walked away,” Atlas wrote.

According to Fightnews Canada, Lalonde later called Atlas a “certifiable nutcase” who “got into fights with trainers and fighters quite a bit when I was with him.”

“He may not be the most stable person walking around,” Lalonde added.

The Lalonde story is only one of many about the antics of Teddy Atlas. From Michael Grant to Shannon

“The Cannon” Briggs, fighters who trained under Atlas have often had major fallings out with him. Briggs claims Atlas became a father figure to him, and then abused him psychologically, especially after he lost his first fight.

“He hurt me and I’ve told him that. It took me a long time to recover mentally from all the things that he said and did,” Briggs has written. “I felt anger because I had dedicated four years to him and I felt like I had been betrayed.”

The stage was set for Atlas’s latest falling out with his own fighter back when Povetkin won the WBA “regular” championship belt against Ruslan Chagaev. Atlas contends that he has an agreement with Povetkin that states that the fighter must train with him in the United States when Atlas is working his regular gig as an analyst for ESPN’s Friday Night Fights. Yet Atlas interrupted his ESPN job for the Chagaev fight to go to Russia at the last minute, making a big show in the boxing media about Povetkin’s abbreviated training camp, and how it might hamper his efforts, hedging his bets in case things didn’t go well against the tough former WBA champ.

Typically, Atlas made himself look like a hero for giving in and going to Russia to train his fighter—for doing his job, in other words. Note the usage of the pronoun “I” in the following quote:

“It got to the point where – it was already late but there couldn’t be any more deadlines,” Atlas said in a pre-fight press conference for the Chagaev title bout. “I had to decide whether I’m not or I am (his trainer). I didn’t want to put the kid through that, so I got on a plane – it was the most nervous I ever was.”

Yes, somehow, no matter what, it’s always all about Teddy Atlas.

Perhaps the real reason that Atlas seems to be looking for a way out of training Povetkin is what inevitably lays down the road for the Russian heavyweight: a fight with a Klitschko brother, most likely Wladimir. Atlas has already pulled Povetkin out of one fight with the world heavyweight champion, for reasons which change depending on who he is talking with (Atlas has claimed that Povetkin “wasn’t ready” for the challenge of Klitschko, and/or that promoter Kalle Sauerland‘s contract was financially unfair to the fighter).

Atlas has rather famously got a major hang-up when it comes to the world heavyweight champion Klitschko brothers: he has spoiled entire ESPN boxing telecasts with his biased ranting against them, even in situations that have little or nothing to do with the heavyweight division. But Atlas has never satisfactorily explained why, if Wladimir Klitschko, as he has claimed on ESPN, is a mediocre fighter who can be easily beaten, he felt that his own fighter “wasn’t ready” to take him on.

Perhaps, deep down, Teddy Atlas doesn’t think Alexander Povetkin has what it takes to defeat either Wladimir or Vitali Klitschko. And having staked so much of his reputation as a boxing analyst on a very negative view of the Klitschkos’ talents, the blow to Atlas’s enormous ego, should his own fighter lose to one of them, would be severe. Better to manufacture a crisis now and get out while still ahead.

Then, if Povetkin goes down to a Klitschko, it will be because he didn’t have Teddy Atlas in his corner.

At least according to Teddy Atlas.


http://www.boxinginsider.com/columns/teddy-atlas-drama-queen/

 

Shannon Briggs: “Teddy Atlas Was the Ultimate Control Freak … He Betrayed Me!”

By Johnny Walker

Boxing commentator and trainer Teddy Atlas is not exactly Mr. Popularity with many American fighters these days.

After recently guiding Russian heavyweight Alexander Povetkin to a paper WBA world heavyweight title (the rightful champion there is “super champ” Wladimir Klitschko), Atlas has found himself taking fire from some American heavyweights who aren’t impressed with what they see as his hypocrisy and his bizarre, manipulative ways.

In a recent interview with Boxing Insider, veteran American heavyweight Monte “Two Gunz” Barrett lambasted Atlas as a “big hypocrite” for apparently choosing to have his new Russian champion fight very faded past champs like Evander Holyfield and Hasim Rahman, rather than take on a man such as himself, a still viable fighter who recently scored an impressive win over a tough foe in David Tua.

“He’s a hypocrite–Teddy Atlas is a hypocrite when it comes to his fighters. He doesn’t preach what he teach,” said Barrett.

Now, another American heavyweight veteran, Shannon Briggs, has published an expose on Atlas on his blog featured in the online edition of Boxing News.

Briggs calls Atlas “the ultimate control freak,” and describes some of the very eccentric behavior that the trainer would engage in. “One of the craziest things he ever said to me was, ‘When you’re in the ring, you’re the body and I’m the mind’” says Briggs.

“I’m just the body and he’s the mind? What’s that about?”

Briggs goes on to describe how he was a young and naive fighter when he first hooked up with Teddy Atlas, and says Atlas became a father figure to him (Briggs’s real father was serving a life sentence, and his mother was strung out on drugs). According to Briggs, Atlas was fond of using invasive psychological techniques to try and gain control over his pugilistic pupil.

Atlas, says Briggs, was a fierce disciplinarian who would call him up at odd hours, sometimes in the middle of the night, and tell him to be at the gym the next day at a certain hour, only to arrive himself much later. Atlas would then deny the phone conversation, and cause a long argument, only to later admit, “I was testing you. I was testing you to see if you would break under pressure.”

Briggs also contends that Atlas at one time held undue influence over the boxing press, who often kowtowed to what Teddy wanted to see in print.

“You have to understand, he had a lot of influence over the writers, a lot of the journalists were scared of him,” Briggs writes. “When I was with Teddy, you wouldn’t hear anything bad about Shannon Briggs, I was God, I was the future heavyweight champion of the world. The day after Teddy and I split, every writer wrote that I was the worst fighter to ever walk on the planet.”

Finally, in a story very similar to what has been heard from others– like American heavyweight Michael Grant–who have worked with Atlas, Briggs says that he was left with serious emotional scars from his relationship with the trainer.

When Briggs lost for the first time, Atlas “went on national TV and gave me a hard time,” Briggs recounts.

“I was hurt because at that point, despite everything that I thought he was doing wrong, he was my father figure. He hurt me and I’ve told him that. It took me a long time to recover mentally from all the things that he said and did. I felt anger because I had dedicated four years to him and I felt like I had been betrayed.”


http://www.boxinginsider.com/headli...the-ultimate-control-freak-…-he-betrayed-me”/

 

The full Teddy Atlas - Donny Lalonde "Murder" story

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.sport.boxing/2006-06/msg00930.html

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=267825

Radio Interview with Donny Lalonde. Time: 20:00 on

http://ringsideboxingshow.podbean.com/2012/04/15/ex-light-hwt-champ-donny-lalonde/