Was Luis Sarria the real, secret trainer of Muhammad Ali?

Really good story about Sarria here -

http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/w0804-sarria.html

 

Luis Sarria was the day to day guy. Angelo was the boss, a “chief second” as he rightly called himself. And that’s what Angelo was. He was never the trainer.

In so far as getting Ali into shape, Luis was that guy. He knew Ali’s body. There was nothing Angelo needed to do until the night of the fight. It was only in the corner where Angelo was the master. Angelo was great to have in a corner. A fast thinker. Said the right things at the right time. Always had his fighters back. But that’s not training.

Everything I have read about Angelo explains this. Ali knew how to fight. He was a maverick who worked hard in the gym. Angelo said things like “Ali did everything wrong but he did it right’ and that if “something wasn’t broke don’t fix it”. He really did leave everything to Luis.

 

Thanks for that, that really was a good article.

 

Not sure where I heard it, but believe it was when Dundee was training Ray Leonard - he would typically only show up in the last week or two leading up to a big fight to work nuances and strategies; the basic conditioning was done by whoever happened to be in the fighters camp. No reason to think it was any different for Ali or Angelo's other fighters. And I believe that was the issue of contention that led to Dundee's getting fired as Leonard's trainer - he wanted an increase in compensation, management felt he wasn't doing enough to warrant it.

 

This is my understanding also.

Angelo was great in a corner. That was his strength. He was happy overseeing Everything else being done by other people.

 

The reason why you won’t find anyone saying that about Sarria is probably because Ali was a unique case. Ali could fight. He did what he wanted anyway. An instinctive unique talent who really just needed somebody capable to get him in shape. After that he needed the right matchmaking and a professional corner on the big nights. Dundee provided the last two things.

If anyone wanted to be trained by Dundee. Or handled by Dundee. They would get an excellent and professional training and handling and would likely make it to their full potential as a fighter.

But none of it would be down to Angelo being the full time coach.

That’s not how it was. Angelo would know who a fighter needed to be fighting. When they needed to be fighting them. He knew what kind of fighter they were already, and he knew who would be capable of the day to day work to carry out what was required ....until Angelo could get the best out of them on the night in the corner.

He supervised and delegated everything apart from the corner. Angelo took over on the night in the corner. He was probably the best cornerman of all time.

 

You sure? I think it was Gil Clancy.

 

Never mind Sarria, does anyone know what Bundini was for?

 

I can't find the picture, but I'll take your word for it. Wonder where I got Clancy from. Thought maybe it was an interview he did with Cosell after the fight, but couldn't find it.

 

Bundini was the original "hype man." He was a colorful character who pumped up the star's ego, got the crowd going by showing how excited he was ... basically, the guy who got the party started ... or ... if it had started, helped to take it up a notch.

Put a clock around his neck, he's Flavor Flav.

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Had him a mirror, he's Jerome from The Time.

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To be fair, Angelo Dundee usually came in a few weeks before the fight for final preparations. Dundee didn't do a lot of the training from the start of camp to the end. He had a lot of fighters. He was traveling a lot, not just with Ali.

Sarria came from Cuba during the Cold War. Cubans in Miami kept a low profile. They didn't want a lot of publicity. It was a volatile time. He was working with a guy who became the most famous man in the world. He loved his job, but he didn't want to be the focus. He was with Ali from the start of camp to the end.

It would be fair to call him the real trainer, in terms of day-to-day physical training.

From a Sports Illustrated article on Ali's entourage in the late 80s.

Sarria rose gradually and hobbled to the house holding the black dog. ''He is sad,'' she said, watching him go.

''Because he cannot work, he is losing force.'' She glanced at the fence. ''If Ali would come to that gate and say, 'Let's go to Manila,' Sarria would be young again.''

I remembered how reporters used to gather in Ali's dressing room after a workout, recording every word from the champion's lips, moving then to the corner man, Angelo Dundee, or perhaps to the street poet, Bundini Brown, or to Dr. Pacheco. Never did anyone exchange a word with Ali's real trainer, as some insiders called Sarria. It was almost as if no one even saw him.

''Even in Spanish,'' said Dundee, ''Sarria was quiet.''

He had flown to America in 1960 to train Cuban welterweight Luis Rodriguez and never returned to his homeland, yet he never learned English. He felt safer that way, his lips opening only wide enough to accommodate his pipe, and Ali seemed to like it, too. Surrounded so many days by con men, jive men, press men and yes men, Ali cherished the morning hour and the afternoon hour on the table with the man who felt no need to speak.

For 16 years, the man physically closest to the most quoted talker of the '70s barely understood a word.

Sometimes Ali would babble at Sarria senselessly, pretending he spoke perfect Spanish, and then in mid-mumbo jumbo blurt out ''maricon!'' and Sarria's eyes would bug with mock horror. Everyone loved the silent old one.

They swore his fingers knew the secret -- how to break up fat on the champion's body and make it disappear.

''And the exercises he put Ali through each morning! Sarria was the reason Muhammad got like this,'' Dundee said, forming a V with his hands. ''He added years to Ali's boxing life.''

The extra years brought extra beatings. And, likely, the Parkinson's syndrome.

''I used to ask God to help me introduce power into him through my hands,'' Sarria said in Spanish, sitting once more on the front step. He rubbed his face. ''Never did I think this could happen to him. I feel like crying when I see him, but that would not be good for him to see. To tell a boxer to stop fighting is an insult. I did not have the strength to tell him, but I wish to God I had.''

''Oh, Sarria,'' said his wife. ''You have never talked.''

''If I had spoken more, I might have said things I should not have. Perhaps they would have said, 'This Cuban talks too much,' and I would have been sent away. . . .''

Or perhaps today he would be standing in Sarria's Health Spa on Fifth Avenue, massaging corporate lumbars for $75 an hour.

He ran his fingers across a paw print on his pants and spoke softly again of Ali. ''Ambitious people . . . people who talk a lot . . . perhaps this is what happens to them.''