Worst moments in the corner? And Teddy Atlas hate thread.

Was it Stan Johnson, the trainer with the skipper hat, who was brought in to train Gerald McClellan against Nigel Benn? I heard McClellan was in shock at how bad Johnson was just days up to their fight in London.

What about Jay Bright in Tyson's corner, dropping absolute wisdom to Mike between rounds against Holyfield with gems like, "You gotta throw more punches Mike!"

 

In between rounds of Lewis-Tyson he was screaming at Lennox like a lunatic. "Quit ****in around with him, Lennox. He's a dead man in there!" Steward was a bit too worried that Mike may catch Lennox on the chin. I thought something might've been wrong with Lewis for a moment there.

 

Yes, it did get weird, Mike wasn't landing a whole bunch at that point so Steward seemed unnecessarily panicky.

 

I think Steward called him a gay slur. It sounded like he said “don’t turn fa99ot!!!”

I guess Manny knew from the Rahman scuffle that Lennox didn’t like the gay comments

Steward claimed afterwards that he was worried that Lennox would get DQ’d by the ref because of his biased officiating. Cotton was indeed overly harsh on Lennox, but I think he was more worried about Tyson landing a Hail Mary shot.

 

One that was weird was Juan Diaz-Michael Katsidis.

It was competitive but Diaz was clearly getting the better of it. Katsidis’s corner had no sense of urgency and kept telling him how beautiful his performance was.

“you’re doing beautiful. Boxing beautifully. I’ve never seen such loveliness before”

 

I don’t guess I had much camera time (which is fine by me) when I was working with fighters — a couple of my guys fought on TV, maybe a few more on regional or overseas (mostly I wasn’t able to travel with them for those fights due to work) — but I can think of a couple of moments someone would have thought I was looking for attention had there been a camera on me.

One time I had a guy in a fight that I thought was pretty much even, or up for grabs, going into the sixth and final round. Just before the bell ending the fifth I caught out of the corner of my eye his wife and their baby boy sitting on the front row. I eased over toward her and said ‘when I point at you, hold that baby up.’ So I pointed and told my guy ‘THAT is what you are fighting for. Now go out and win this round for that baby!” He went out and threw like a 25-30 punch flurry like he was shot out out of a cannon, rocked the guy back into the ropes and got an 8-count because the ropes held him up. Won the round, won the fight.

Another time I had a guy fighting an opponent who kept coming in with his head like a missile and butting him. My guy was cut over both eyes. He was looking to the ref for help and just seemed like he was about to get overwhelmed through the first three rounds. I knew he didn’t have a lot of time because the cuts were bad and he was checking out.

I asked him, ‘Are you willing to go to hell to win this fight?’ He said yes. I said, ‘Well then take him with you and see if he is.’ I told him if the guy butted him again to hit him in the nuts — just once — to send the message that two can play dirty. Midway through the fourth it happened. My guy was deducted a point and the other guy got a break for a few minutes to recover and when they resumed my guy went after him with everything he had and stopped him in the final seconds of the round after knocking him down a couple of times.

But of course the only one who really heard what I had to say was my guy and whoever was helping in the corner. So I don’t necessarily know if Teddy is looking for fame when he does what he does — you’d have to see what he did when Michael Grant or the others were fighting off TV to really judge. He may just be theatrical and overly dramatic.

 

People aren’t critical of Manny Steward due to his recent passing but he isn’t a sacred cow. The last thing you’d want in your corner in a violent situation is someone you can barely understand screaming in your ear inhibiting your thinking. After all you aren’t gonna be taught something new in the corner I think.

 

Stan Johnson lost those teeth because Gerald lost his temper with his incompetent pad handling. Allegedly.

 

This the absolute winner right here.

 

"Keep ****ing around in there and catch some crazy sh*t" is my favourite boxing quote ever

 

I can’t remember the fight where Steward said something like “well I guess you’re going to have to go get a job. You ain’t no fighter.”

 

I think Steward at one point says “I’m going to get me a drink.” Yikes!

 

Do we want to talk about the greatest waste of heavyweight talent in the past 20 years, Alex Povetkin? Teddy's idiocy and intransigence ruined his prime. I guess some of that blame has to go to Alex for hanging around, but shee it Teddy sucks.

 

I remember when Andrew Golota quit against Mike Tyson…..his corner went ape ****