I only learned yesterday of the passing of the man whom I consider to have been the greatest trainer in boxing history, Angelo Dundee, three days ago. Dundee was the chief cornerman for sixteen world champions over the course of five decades, including most notably Carmen Basilio, Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, and, for his successful comeback, George Foreman.
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/angelo-dundee-dead-90-15494635#.Ty6nO66DFD8Dundee took on the young Ali and was instrumental in helping him get through fights in the 1960's against Henry Cooper and his first title fight against Sonny Liston. He stuck with Ali during the three-year period that the latter was banned from boxing for refusing to serve in Vietnam, and spearheaded his regaining of the heavyweight title twice. I especially remember Dundee very humanely stopping Ali's fight with Larry Holmes, after Holmes had won the title, in the corner after the tenth round, when he didn't want to see Ali take any more of a beating.
Fast forward to 7:20.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBa9BxfYpHABut most iconic for me were Dundee's performances in the corner with Sugar Ray Leonard during his 1981 welterweight unification fight against Tommy Hearns, and during his successful 1987 bid to win Marvelous Marvin Hagler's middleweight title. Leonard, behind on points after 12 rounds against Hearns, was egged on by Dundee, who dramatically warned Leonard he was losing, at which point Leonard, with one eye swollen nearly shut, promptly rose from his stool and took Hearns out.
Fast forward to 1:05.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu3fCnHjgkQBefore the last round of Leonard's 1987 fight with Hagler, Dundee once again showed his skills at motivating an exhausted fighter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wBPzG7h9OM&feature=related(Sadly, the chief trainer in Hagler's corner in this fight, Goody Petroneli, also a fantastic trainer and human being, passed away last week.)
Disgracefully, Leonard, in an act if cynical selfishness, did not offer a much-deserved bonus to Dundee in the aftermath of this fight, and terminated him.
There were two things I admired most in Dundee. The first was the way he handled his fighters. He knew not only exactly what to say to them, with the right tone that fit the moment, but he also knew what he didn't have to tell them, so that the fighters were able to pick up exactly the right cues during the brief sixty-second rests between rounds. But more importantly, Dundee was a caring, compassionate human being, who almost never uttered a single hostile word against anyone even when he had been wronged, and who genuinely and dearly loved boxers as human beings. Once questioned on an ESPN special about the fighters that fell to Joe Louis in a string of the champion's knockouts during the 1940's, the so-called "Bum of the Month Club," Dundee, on a rare occasion, bristled and said he took great offense to anyone who would call fighters "bums," because, as he put it, "it takes a very special and very brave young man to be a boxer."
Rest in Peace, Angelo Dundee. Boxing has lost the greatest ring trainer it has ever seen, and we have lost a truly wonderful man.
