Who’s the best trainer of all time?

That's comparable. Not really better.

 

Steward

 

Tough question, but I have to give it to Papa Smurf.

Steward was incredible, and Dundee was no joke.

 

Steward always showing up on these lists is curious to me. Not to diminish his accomplishment in any way but his success was based on his ability to bring out the best in one type of fighter; guys with height and reach advantages. With McClellan add in a metabolism that allowed the fighter to dry up to 160 and rehydrate to 190 and thus be a middleweight.
He was never the only trainer at Kronk. A strong argument can be made that the best teacher at Kronk was the top level sparring available; that has been the strongest thing about the Wild Card forever.
You can trot out a list of guy Stewart "worked" with but he made Oscar worse, not better. He had a lot of success with one style .

 

Interesting argument, and I appreciate being schooled about the sparring quality at Kronk. I didn't know that.

 

I guess it was simply the striking change Steward made in Lewis that most impressed me. I felt LL was an excellent, but one-armed boxer before ES, after Kronk he became an unquestionable ATG imo.

 

Nick Florio, Izzy Kline, Dolph Thomas, Bill Gore, Lou Gross, and Larry Amadee are guys who should be considered and who I don't believe have been mentioned yet

 

To me, the remarkable story would be if any trainer had Lennox Lewis, a 6-5, 235 pound Olympic champion and he didn't become a dominating champion. Lewis was one of the biggest of his time, he was skilled, athletic...any trainer would like to have a guy like that. Steward may or may not have been a great trainer, but there were probably hundreds of trainers who could "train" Lewis to the championship.

 

There's a lot of guys that could have messed him up, too, because teaching a guy to fight smart and use his advantages doesn't always occur to everyone. And there is a credibility issue that gets overlooked by many- does the trainer's opinion matter to the fighter? Would Lewis and Wlad have listened to another guy telling them the same thing?

 

Angelo started at Stillman's.

 

What happened to longbearded, red-haired Don Thibodeaux? Stewarts partner. After Hearns/Leonard 1 in 1981 he was never seen again. Did Stewart scapegoat him?

 

Sparring at the Kronk was ferocious. Errol Christie never recovered from his time there in the 80's. It made Dennis Andries a multiple world champion.

 

Some good shouts here. No love for Al Silvani ?

 

I almost agreed until I remembered Dennis Andries. Hardly a lanky bomber and the opposite of a prototype Kronk fighter. And Manny hardly made him a top boxer but he made him a champion.

But if I was tall and wanted to develop my hook to the liver and right cross, I'd look no further.

 

tough one to say. Angelo gets a lot of his fame with Ali and Ray who would have done well with anyone. Angelo was great with them because at the right times he knew how to push the buttons. I like guys like Steward who really knew the sport and had gameplans and saw something from the beginning. He would make guys better just from being there. I don't think you can say the same for Angelo. Part of being great in the corner or management in boxing is to be able to not only see when his fighter does well but to also see when he is not great at something. I have a friend who trained fighters and his fighters would lose fights. I mean get beaten up and the fights were stopped fairly if not too late sometimes. After the fight in the dressing room as his fighter is getting his eye stitched my friend is talking about protesting the decision. And I told him once " that was stopped on time" and we argued and didn't talk for a little while. You have to know when you are winning and losing and be able to make adjustments or call it quits. That is part of being a good trainer to know how to improve or even know when to stop a fight at the right time. Emanuel was that great.