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

klompton2 · Aug 28, 2020

Saintpat said: ↑

None of which suggests they didn’t learn anything from Dundee.

Find me the quote that says Willie Pastrano at 15 was a finished product who needed no refinement nor improvement.

Obviously Esneault was a great trainer. And fundamentals are great, they are a foundation from which to learn.

Dundee, as he did with so many fighters, took them farther than they had gotten or likely could have gotten without him.

And Chris Dundee wasn’t promoting their fights all around the country over the course of their careers. Willie fought in New Orleans, went to Miami for a summer with Dundee while still in high school as a four-round guy and by the end of a summer in Miami had advanced to eight rounds. That’s progress.

As usual, you take select facts and then draw from them a conclusion — in this case that Dundee taught them nothing because they had good fundamentals when he hooked up with them and were professional fighters — that is no way supported from the facts you cite.

If your contention is that any trainer who doesn’t take a kid from the first day in the gym to a world championship is a fraud, well, there’s a lot of Hall of Fame trainers who were frauds.

It’s quite common for a trainer to teach someone the rudiments and bring in someone else to further their eduction.

Let’s put your assertions through a quick fact check, shall we?

You say Dupas and Pastrano couldn’t get fights so had to sign with the Dundees. Yet Dupas had 28 fights before he ever fought in Miami and less than 10 of his first 58 fights were in Miami. The vast, vast majority were in New Orleans. Pastrano fought like eight of his first 21 fights in Miami.

In both cases, their early excursions to fight in Miami happened when they were still in high school and Esnault sent them down to work with Dundee during the summer.

You say they couldn’t get 10-rounders in New Orleans. Yet Dupas was fighting 8-rounders there quite often and there were no 10-rounders on the card. He was main eventing in eight-rounders.

It’s quite possible the Louisiana commission didn’t want schoolboys fighting 10 rounds for their own health, as both started quite young, in their mid teens.

Your conclusions, as usual, are not backed up by facts.

I will, however, give you points for your desperate attempt to turn this thread, which is about your statement that Luis Sarria was Ali’s real trainer and that Dundee was only “supposedly” training Ali, in another direction.

You should keep the stuff about Pastrano and Dupas on the other thread, which is about Pastrano.

Now how about you provide a source that Sarria was Ali’s trainer.
Click to expand...

This entire post is made up of straw man arguments I never made, as per usual, in an attempt to deflect. For instance, when did I say anything about ten round fights? When? The point is you are going to argue and believe what you want. Im not trying to convince a moron like you of anything. Anybody who is remotely curious about this subject doesnt have to take my word for it or yours. They can research it themselves and Im confident they will come away with similar conclusions to what I have illustrated.

mcvey · Aug 28, 2020

klompton2 said: ↑

It was his leg and his wife. His wife was sickly and Ill so he stayed close to home to be with her. He lost his leg in 1954. He had already shown a lack of interest in traveling well before that. He sent Pastrano and Dupas to Dundee for two reasons: If you wanted your fighters to go anywhere in the sport during the Carbo/IBC era you had to hook up with a connected manager. Thats why you see so many co-manager agreements during this period. The Dundees were connected. The other reason was that in New Orleans at the time mixed race bouts were illegal which limited the opportunities. In fact at one point Dupas was accused of being black by a former teacher and went to court over it to allow a fight to proceed. So what does a handler do with two talented fighters in the deep south that have the ability but cant get the fights that would develop him into a major attraction/contender? You hook up with the closest connected guys you can that can provide training, fights, a venue, and television dates. The first time they go to Miami they are fighting on the undercards of well publicized fights like Dykes-Zanelli. They next time they go back they are headlining their own card together, and the next tim they are fighting contenders in main events. Thats how boxers were moved in that era. Esneault couldnt have done that. Dundee himself called Esneault the finest trainer of boxing fundamentals and argued that he should be in the hall of fame. He was also quoted many times as saying that despite being kids Dupas and Pastrano were already well schooled pros when ge took them over. Again, not hard to find multiple quotes on this and not hard to put together how this all played out. Not sure why saintpat cant accept that.
Click to expand...

Didnt know about the Wife ,good info as per usual!

Saintpat · Aug 28, 2020

klompton2 said: ↑

This entire post is made up of straw man arguments I never made, as per usual, in an attempt to deflect. For instance, when did I say anything about ten round fights? When? The point is you are going to argue and believe what you want. Im not trying to convince a moron like you of anything. Anybody who is remotely curious about this subject doesnt have to take my word for it or yours. They can research it themselves and Im confident they will come away with similar conclusions to what I have illustrated.
Click to expand...

Show us where to research this claim, which is the very basis of this thread:

klompton2 said: ↑

Ali, was trained by Joe Martin and Fred Stoner originally and Luis Sarria later when Dundee was supposedly training him.
Click to expand...

All your ‘research’ and you haven’t yet cited one source, one quote ... anything.

Why don’t you quit trying to obfuscate and misdirect and address this?

You really need to take the Dupas/Pastrano discussion to the other thread and quit trying to dodge the point of this thread (your own words, quoted above), but ...

You stated that the boys needed to go to Miami to get the kind of fights Esneault couldn’t get them in New Orleans to make them attractions and build them up, but Dupas became a contender by beating Savoie in New Orleans and fought name fighters like Paddy DeMarco and Johnny Gonsalves and others there.

Willie fought Rex Layne and Joey Maxim and others in New Orleans.

Seems to me that once they got past their developmental stages and Dundee had them ready, there was no problem in getting them meaningful fights in NOLA.

Log in or Sign up

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

klompton2 Boxing Junkie banned Full Member

mcvey VIP Member Full Member

Saintpat Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

Log in or Sign up

Forums

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

klompton2 Boxing Junkie banned Full Member

mcvey VIP Member Full Member

Saintpat Obsessed with Boxing Full Member