Willie Pastrano enters the matrix...

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@klompton2 doesn’t want you to know this, but when Angelo Dundee opted to train Jimmy Ellis and work his corner for Ellis’ fight with Ali, Muhammad went outside and hired Harry Wiley (former Sugar Ray Robinson trainer) as his head trainer for that fight.

(Dundee did this with Ali’s blessing because Angelo was both manager and trainer of Ellis and would thus get a bigger cut of the purse.)

But why would Ali bring in Wiley if Luis Sarria was his actual trainer all along? Why not just make it public that Sarria is his true trainer? Or even say Sarria is going to train him for this fight because Angelo is not available if there’s some reason to keep Sarria’s role secret?

In fact, why not just cut ties with Dundee altogether at this point? Ali doesn’t need Dundee’s connections any more at this point. Chris Dundee is not promoting his fights, he’s in the big leagues now. It’s the perfect time to say ‘Sarria is my real trainer’ and make the switch (if it really is a switch and Angelo was just a figurehead trainer).

Can’t wait to see @klompton2 contortionist pretzel logic to explain why Sarria would have to pretend to be only a conditioning coach and masseuse for the Ellis fight with Dundee out of the picture, and why not get rid of Dundee altogether and let Sarria assume the role for all to see going forward.

 

I think Klompton is right about the situation.

Dundee was beneficial in lots of other ways, but he never saw himself as a day today coach of any fighter. He was the first to admit this. Angelo was a second. A chief second.

Angelo told Brian Hughes that he could never do what he did, to take kids right through the amateur system all the way to title level in the pros. He was more about taking ready made fighters to the next level. He did not have time for that. He was a professional second.

 

Very few trainers — Emmanuel Steward being one of the few — have both successfully trained amateurs from the day they walked into the gym to world championships AND worked as a ‘hired gun’ to take an already-accomplished-but-not-quite-there-yet pro and make him a world champ. Two different skill sets and precious few people have ever done it.

I’m pretty sure Eddie Futch never did it. Nor a ton of other great trainers. Doesn’t make them less great. But does that mean Eddie didn’t train Frazier, Norton, Larry Holmes, Alexis Arguello? All of those guys already knew how to fight so I guess he had nothing to do with it.

In fact, Futch is similar to Dundee in that game-planning was one of his strengths. Angelo was also a master at plotting a career — choosing the right opponents at the right time to help a fighter develop and exposing him to what he needs to see to not just win a title, but be ready to hold it. Fast guys. Tall guys. Short guys. Southpaws. All in the right order, when the fighter is ready for it. Dundee is the guy who turned down Thomas Hearns for Ray Leonard when CBS (or one of the other networks, I forget, but it’s chronicled in Four Kings) offered the bout when they were on their way up for like $100k. Angelo said not now, we’ll fight him later for a lot more money. That’s a multi-million-dollar business decision. I don’t think the Futches and Freddie Roaches and such ever showed talent in that area.

So everybody is different.

But you and @klompton2 want to make it so that Dundee was rarely in the gym and only showed up for training camp with Ali. Which, after a period fo time, is quite true. But once Ali reached a certain point, like all fighters, he trained only for the next fight and did so in camp. Do you think Sarria flew to Chicago to work with Ali between fights when Ali lived there? No, Dundee (and Pacheco and Sarria and the whole crew) met Ali in Deer Park, Pa., and they all worked there together. So I guess those guys were hired guns, too?

You know who says Dundee taught Ali boxing things, technique? I guy named Cassius Clay says so before he changed his name:

https://vault.si.com/vault/1965/05/24/man-in-the-champs-corner

Says Clay (later Ali of course), he knew how to fight when he came to Dundee, BUT Angelo did teach him to (presumably better) throw the right uppercut, turn the jab from a flick into a weapon — oh yeah, he also mentions how to throw the hook and body punch.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1965/05/24/man-in-the-champs-corner

He says this while they are being interviewed after a workout in the Fifth Street Gym in Miami ... the day BEFORE they were going up north for a training camp.

Now ask yourself these questions:

1) Is Ali lying?

2) If so, why?

3) WTFBBQ is Dundee even doing in a boxing gym before even leaving for camp if he only shows up the last week or so?

@klompton2 wants you to believe those myths, the basis for it being Dundee at a certain (post-Leonard) point in his career that’s exactly what he did — same as Emmanuel Steward, Freddie Roach and a lot of great trainers. He would go to camp with fighters to get them ready for a specific fight as a ‘hired gun.’ Just like those guys and Georgie Benton and a ton of other great trainers — but somehow this is supposed to make Dundee not a real trainer.

And guess what Ali never says in that article? He never says, “Dundee is not my trainer. Sarria is my trainer. He taught me everything.” Hell, he never even says he taught him anything.

 

I agree with this. Angelo really understood the business. A lot of people around boxing also really understand the business. Not all of them are so capable as Angelo Dundee. He was really a very smart guy who deserved to do as well as he did. Angelo worked hard. He spoke well. He didn’t cross too many people and he really understood how things worked. He was not an idiot.

As you say it was quite true that later on Dundee only showed up for training camp with Ali late on but that can be because by then he had absolute trust in how Ali worked with Sarria.

He probably was instrumental in deciding Ali needed to concentrate on this and left the day to day drills to somebody else. Probably Luis Sarria. We don’t know if this was the recommendation of Luis. It could have been a collaboration.

The reason why Ali never says, “Dundee is not my trainer. Sarria is my trainer. He taught me everything.” Is probably because it was always such team collaboration. there was not a lot to teach Ali after he had already won a gold medal and worked with Archie Moore. He just needed keeping on track. Dundee was really the professional face of the camp. Dundee was vital. He oversaw everything. The press loved him and Angelo did a great job answering their questions.

 

Ali never even said Sarria was part of the team as far as being a boxing trainer. So why wouldn’t he at least say, ‘It’s a team effort, with Dundee and Sarria being the boxing trainers’? He never did because it wasn’t so.

I said Dundee only showed up for training camps late in Ali’s career because Ali ONLY TRAINED at training camps late in his career. Do you think he finished a fight in the mid-1970s, went home for a week and flew down to Miami to work with Sarria and THEN went to training camp? If so, what kind of job was Sarria doing if he had Ali for all that time and the man always came into camp in terrible shape and kept gaining weight?

Just like Lennox Lewis, just like Mike Tyson, just like Larry Holmes and every champion boxer in the modern era, they fight, they take time off, they sign for the next fight and then, however many weeks out they decide they need to train, they go to training camp. They do not go run their miles every day and go to the gym and work out five days a week. Not how it works. I’m shocked you don’t know this.

Dundee was only in camp with Ali in his later stages just like Sarria and Pecheco and everyone else. They were in Miami and Ali was traveling around and had his house in New Jersey or Chicago (depending on the timeframe) and they would meet up when it was time to get ready for a fight. Dundee is no less there than the rest. Hell, ALI wasn’t in training camp until it was time to train for a fight, so I guess they’d have to sit around and play cards and tell stories.

The idea that Sarria was Ali’s trainer is supported by absolutely zero evidence. You can believe whatever you want, of course, but, once again: Ali never said it, Sarria never said it, Pacheco never said it, Dundee never said it, no one who hung out in camp or in the gym with them ever said it. Not a single word attributed to anyone other than @klompton2 — who has nothing to back it up — has ever surfaced.

And there is a ton of evidence that supports that Sarria’s role was conditioning coach and masseuse. I’d be interested to know what you base your opinion on.

You realize, I presume, that Freddie Roach doesn’t work the mitts with Manny Pacquiao. Does that mean the mitt man is the trainer? The guys who run with him are the trainers? That the strength and conditioning coach is the secret head coach of the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick is a puppet?