Boxing has an embittered history of death, in the ring and beyond the ropes. A dangerous sport, it kills unlucky fighters. But it doesn’t take death to alter a fighter physically or mentally. Each time a fighter steps inside those ropes he’ll likely emerge different, damaged, internal organs battered, his brain shaken or concussed. Lucky fighters get cut, a broken nose or cheekbone, urinating blood for a week.
Health and safety cannot be guaranteed. Boxing doesn’t discriminate, devouring its heroes and villains with equal aplomb. It’s not just fights that splinter a boxer’s defence and memory. Training can be just as brutal, often worse than the bouts. To learn to fight, one must fight, get hit and experience the blankness when a punch lands sweetly, right on the button.
Some fighters spar 120 rounds, five hours of fighting, in preparation to fight twelve rounds of boxing. Preparation, for a big fight, is inexorably ruthless. Evander Holyfield didn’t take it easy in sparing when preparing to fight Mike Tyson. Holyfield ordered his sparring partners to whack him best they could. Tommy Brooks, his chief second, had Holyfield in peak condition, roadwork done, strength and conditioning precise.
At the end of a furious first round, Brooks uttered six words that defined Holyfield’s fight. ‘You be the bully in there,’ Brooks said. Holyfield became the bully, butting Tyson, cutting him, tying him up on the inside, beating him to the punch and winning in the eleventh round.
Having a great man as chief second can make a huge difference to the outcome of a fight. A good trainer is known not just for his ability to get his man fit, he’ll develop tactics to neutralise the opponent and provide sound advice during a fight. The chief second is the fighter’s general, father figure and motivator. The chief second is everything to a fighter…
Typically the chief second is an old man, short and tubby, a veteran of the ring, hundreds of amateur fights and a chequered career as a professional. The wisdom gained by being hit, hurt, cut, knocked down and knocked out is passed on in part gospel, false bravado, truth and lies.
Boxing lost one of the greatest chief seconds on 1 February, when Angelo Dundee died at home from a heart attack. Born Angelo Mirena on 30 August 1921 in Philadelphia, where the winos know how to hook off the jab, Dundee was 90.
Dundee belonged to the golden age of boxing, but he wasn’t a throwback in the traditional sense. His success as a trainer bucked traditions, because he never had an amateur or professional fight in his life.
Drawn into the red light district of sports, Dundee spent his time at Stillman’s Gym in New York, carrying the spit bucket or the ice bucket for renowned trainers like Charlie Goldman, Chickie Ferrara and Ray Arcel. Dundee gained a professional education from those men, absorbing lessons about fitness, preparation, sparring and tactics.
When his brother, Chris Dundee, opened Miami’s Fifth Street Gym, Angelo assumed the mantle as head trainer. He’d worked as a cornerman, an aide de camp, when Carmen Basilio defeated Tony DeMarco in 1955 for the welterweight championship. He was there when Basilio beat Sugar Ray Robinson for the middleweight title in 1957. In boxing terms, Dundee was experienced, but his life changed immeasurably when Cassius Clay – aka Muhammad Ali – walked into the gym and predicted he’d be heavyweight champion of the world.
Dundee and Ali formed a partnership that lasted, professionally, from 1960 to 1981. Ali, a cultural icon, one of the world’s most famous people, had 61 professional fights. Dundee was his chief second for all but two, Ali’s debut against Tunney Hunsaker in 1960 and against Jimmy Ellis in 1971.
Remarkably, Dundee was in Ellis’s corner the night he fought Ali, an unusual move that amounted to desertion, yet one Ali didn’t seem concerned about. Ellis was Dundee’s fighter too, and worked as Ali’s sparring partner. Dundee couldn’t be in both corners and decided to work with the underdog.
Ali stopped Ellis in the twelfth and final round.
In an unrivalled career, Dundee worked with 15 world champions including Ali, Basilio, Sugar Ray Leonard, José Nápoles, George Foreman, Jimmy Ellis, Luis Rodriguez and Willie Pastrano.
With each high profile fight, Dundee’s star shone. No doubt, after Ali, he was able to pick and choose the boxers he worked with, but his fighters endured many tough moments, and that’s where Dundee’s ability to inspire, excite and scare influenced the outcomes of many fights.
Make no mistake, not all of those moments were legal, nor did Dundee always proffer sound advice. At times it was panicked improvisation. He was prone to moments of brutality, at his fighter or those nearby, but he never misrepresented the situation in the corner.
In 1963, Britain’s Henry Cooper sat Ali down with a murderous left hook moments before the end of the fourth round. The crowd at Wembley Stadium erupted as Ali stood up and staggered back to his corner. Dundee, having noticed a split in the seam of Ali’s glove at the end of the first round, opened it up and showed the split to referee Tommy Little, who ordered a new set of gloves.
The delay in searching for gloves – there wasn’t a spare set – wasn’t more than two minutes but it gave Ali time to recover and he stopped Cooper in the fifth.
Eight months later, on 25 February 1964, Ali fought Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title. At the end of the fourth round, Ali writhed in the corner, shrieking about being blind, his eyes burning, demanding Dundee cut the gloves off. Dundee stuck a pinky on Ali’s glove and put it in his eye, feeling the burn. Sponging Ali’s eyes out, he stood him up as ringside officials and the referee closed in. Fearful they’d stop the fight, Dundee pointed Ali at Liston and worked his magic.
‘Run,’ Dundee screamed.
Ali ran until his eyes cleared midway through the fifth, then he started to dominate again. Liston quit on his stool at the end of the sixth round, citing a shoulder injury.
The fight was seconds away from being stopped. Dundee’s command, run, ensured Ali became the heavyweight champion of the world.
In the seventies Dundee was Sugar Ray Leonard’s chief second. Leonard, a rising darling of boxing with crossover appeal, was an Olympic gold medallist, appearing in commercials before he won a world title. He was hyped bigger than Ali.
Dundee attended training camp two or three weeks before each fight to fine tune Leonard, developing tactics to nullify the opponent. By 1981, Leonard was the welterweight champion of the world. Tommy Hearns was too.
On 16 September, they met at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for the unified WBC/WBA welterweight title. The fight ended up being named as Ring Magazine’s fight of the year. At the end of the twelfth round, Leonard’s left eye was swollen and closing. Behind on points, Dundee had a corner man hold an ice bag against Leonard’s eye.
Leaning in close, Dundee scolded his fighter. ‘We’ve got nine minutes, you’re blowing it now son,’ he said. ‘You’re blowing it.’ Dundee looked at the help. ‘Okay, put the ice on his back.’ He held the endswell on Leonard’s eye. ‘Keep that there, keep that there Ray baby.’
‘Open your mouth wide, let’s go. Ray, you got to fire, you’re not firing. Spit out.’
Leonard spat.
‘Ray, I separate the man from the boys now, we’re blowing it. After wiping Leonard’s face with the sponge, Dundee leaned through the ropes and told him how to win. ‘Come on baby, you’ve got to be quicker,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to take it away from him, okay.’
Leonard stopped Hearns in the fourteenth round. Those words, you’re blowing it son, you’ve got to take it away from him, altered the course of the fight. Dundee will be lauded for those words for centuries.
In 1986, appointed at late notice to train Trevor Berbick for his first title defence against Mike Tyson, Dundee fretted about Tyson’s fast hands and ability to get inside. In what time he had, Dundee implored Berbick to use the jab, tie Tyson up on the inside and wear him out with a long fight.
Berbick didn’t listen, standing in front of Tyson, loading up, big punches instead of jabbing, moving straight back instead of side to side. Tyson, late in the first round, had Berbick splayed legged, staggering and hurt. The champion was lucky to survive the round.
When Berbick poked his tongue out at Tyson, referee Mills Lane pushed him to the corner. Berbick slumped on the stool, head buzzing.
Dundee stood in front. ‘Give me the spit bucket,’ he said, grabbing it from a corner man and holding out the ice bag. ‘Put this on him,’ he yelled to the man. ‘Put this on him.’ The aide put the ice back on the back of Berbick’s neck. Dundee bent down, spending five precious seconds rifling through the bucket, finally standing up, arms wide, palms up.
‘Where’s the fucking sponge?’ Dundee yelled, showing not an ounce of calm. There’s a minute between rounds. Dundee was wasting time looking for the sponge instead of tending to his fighter.
‘Lee has it,’ a second said.
‘What?’ Dundee yelled.
‘Lee has it.’
Lee, who’d been wiping ice cold water over Berbick’s face and head, looked sideways at Dundee and held out the sponge. Dundee grabbed it and leaned in close to Berbick, doing exactly what Lee had been doing, wiping cold water from the sponge on Berbick’s face.
‘Right, you’re fighting like a fucking bum,’ Dundee yelled at Berbick. The tirade didn’t work. Berbick was counted out late in the second round.
The vision seems comically unprofessional, Dundee bent over, looking in the bucket then losing his calm, where’s the fucking sponge, when he could’ve been soothing his fighter. But he had a routine. As chief second, he wiped the fighter’s face down as he talked to him. Disruption to the routine rattled Dundee.
Lee was wiping Berbick’s face, as Dundee did once he gathered the sponge. It mattered little who wiped Berbick’s face. The champion had just been belted across the ring. He needed calm, not an argument.
Dundee, though, might’ve been aggrieved. What had been discussed, tactically, in training was discarded in the ring. Standing in front of Tyson without using the jab wasn’t the way to fight him. At the end of that first round, Dundee might’ve given up on Berbick, and that could’ve made him angry.
Seven months later, 30 May 1987, Dundee trained Pinklon Thomas for his title challenge against Mike Tyson. Thomas was better skilled than Berbick but wasn’t as big. He was at long odds to win, though he did better than many thought.
Early on, though, it appeared another Tyson opponent wouldn’t make it out of the first round. Tyson rocked Thomas with a right hook and followed up with a sustained barrage, timing Thomas off the ropes with scything hooks and uppercuts. At round’s end, Thomas was cut, bruised and hurt.
‘He’s butting hell out of you,’ Dundee said as Thomas slumped on the stool. Ringside doctor Flip Homansky stepped up onto the ring apron to examine Thomas. Technically, the ringside doctor can’t stop the fight, but he can advise the referee to do so, and referees aren’t stupid enough to ignore the doctor’s advice.
‘He’s alright,’ Dundee yelled at Homansky.
‘Quiet Angelo,’ Homansky said.
‘But he’s alright,’ Dundee screamed. ‘Leave him the fuck alone,’
‘Quiet Angelo,’ Homansky said. ‘Pinky, look up at me.’ Thomas dutifully looked up at Homansky while Dundee fumed.
‘Leave him alone goddamn it,’ Dundee yelled. Behind the thick glasses, his eyes flamed murder. ‘Damn it, leave this fucking man alone, Jesus Christ.’
Homansky moved away, but Dundee wasn’t finished. ‘Get away from this man.’ By now off camera, Homansky’s response was inaudible. Dundee wasn’t impressed.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re nothing.
Tyson hammered Thomas to a shocking knockout in the sixth round.
Having watched Tyson from across the ring, Dundee was impressed in an interview in the late eighties. ‘Tyson throws combinations I never saw before,’ he said. When have you seen a guy throw a right hand to the kidney, come up the middle with an uppercut, then throw a left hook. He throws punches like a trigger.’
In 1987, Dundee trained Leonard for his fight against Marvin Hagler. It was Leonard’s first fight in three years, just his second in five years. Hagler was heavily favoured but appeared slow and clumsy against Leonard’s movement through the first four rounds.
In the fifth, Leonard got brave, trading with Hagler and getting raked by a left uppercut that sat him against the ropes. Hagler had found the range and let his punches go. At the end of the round, Dundee sat Leonard down and slapped his thighs.
‘Don’t load up,’ he screamed. ‘Don’t load up.’ He leaned into Leonard. ‘I want you to box.’
The sixth round was uneventful, but Leonard found his feet, moved and boxed, regaining control of the fight, doing enough to win a split decision. Dundee’s words, don’t load up, helped turn the fight. Leonard, chastened by the master, boxed the remainder, his victory remarkable.
Disgusted with the decision, Hagler never fought again.
Back in 1974, when Ali knocked out George Foreman for the heavyweight title, the Rumble in the Jungle, in Zaire, Dundee was in Ali’s corner. By 1994, when Foreman, aged 45, challenged Michael Moorer for the heavyweight title, he enlisted Dundee’s help.
Dundee, having once plotted Foreman’s downfall, knew his limitations and had to work with George’s aged skills. Though Dundee never publically admitted it, he must’ve felt helpless in training. Foreman weighed more than 250 pounds. He was slow and ponderous, his punches heavy, but slow and ponderous too.
Moorer, closer to 220 pounds, was 17 years younger. It seemed a grand mismatch, even for boxing.
Forman sustained a measured beating through nine rounds. Moorer was an unremarkable champion, suitably skilled but lacking the killer instinct the best possess. Content to jab and move, Moorer was winning every round, Foreman’s eyes were closing and the commentators were suggestion the bout should be stopped.
At the end of the eighth round, Dundee administered Vaseline to Foreman and offered blunt advice.
‘You’ve got to knock him out,’ Dundee said.
Two rounds later, Foreman did, becoming, with that solid straight right hand, the oldest heavyweight in history. The sentimentalists raged effusively, a grand old trainer, chief second to a grand old fighter.
The sentimentalists had more to write about. Foreman, determined to right the wrongs of Zaire, wore the same shorts he’d worn that fateful night against Ali.
In 1994, Dundee was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of fame. He continued to work the corner for fighters well into his eighties. In 2005 he trained Russell Crowe’s depiction of James J. Braddock for the movie Cinderella Man.
Dundee is widely regarded as one of the nicest men in boxing. No one had a bad word to say about him. He was modest in his praise about his work with Ali, I just put the reflexes in the proper direction, but that dramatically reduces his impact. Dundee got inside Ali’s head. In the gym, Ali wanted to be the boss. Dundee let him have the mantle, using reverse psychology to get Ali to work.
When Dundee devised a strategy to beat a fighter and Ali didn’t want to implement it, the champ was tricked. ‘That left hook on the inside you just threw,’ Dundee would say. ‘He’s a sucker for that, that was a beautiful punch.’
Chuffed, Ali would work on the left hook, thrown on the inside, because he thought it’d been his idea.
A chief second is everything to a fighter. Dundee worked the corner as best he could, for Ali and every other fighter who enlisted his help. More often than not, if his fighters listened to him, they won, or they won the rematch.
Dundee isn’t without recrimination, no man never truly is. Urging Ali to retire didn’t stop him from working the corner long after Ali was a relic of an elegant past. The unfortunate urge to win the title for a fourth time propelled the 38-year old Ali into the ring against Larry Holmes on 2 October 1980.
Many trainers have turned away from fighters in similar situations. Dundee didn’t. The fight, held at Caesars Palace, was everything that is wrong in boxing.
Ali could barely throw a punch. Holmes didn’t want to whack him. The referee, Richard Greene, didn’t want to stop the fight. In Ali’s corner, Drew Bundini Brown implored Ali on, crying as the bout grew longer. Dundee had been begging Ali to let the left hook go all night. Holmes was open for it. By the middle rounds, Ali couldn’t lift his hands.
The crowd was hushed, stunned after ten rounds. Dundee called for Greene to come to the corner. Bundini wanted to give Ali another round. Others in the corner wanted the same. In the minority, Dundee raged.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m the chief second and I’m stopping the fight.’
It was a horrid moment for boxing, for world sport and for Muhammad Ali. But there is always one more time for great fighters. Ali was 40 when he fought Trevor Berbick over ten rounds in Nassau, in the Bahamas. Dundee, knowing Ali didn’t have it anymore, trained him one last time.
He couldn’t, as many trainers do, walk away. His charter was to do what is right for the fighter, and by being in Ali’s corner, he felt he could protect him. The fight wasn’t competitive, the loss closing out Ali’s career.
Dundee’s life closed out a few weeks ago. There will be no more fighters trained, no more words of inspiration said. There is nothing left but magnificent legacy, chief second to the best the world has seen.
He can be forgiven for telling it as he saw it, don’t load up, you’re blowing it, leave this fucking man alone, you’ve got to knock him out.
Let every fighter take inspiration from Dundee’s words, such simple advice, as the best advice always is.
RIP Angelo Dundee…
The link below will take you to a commercial featuring Angelo Dundee and Muhammad Ali.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1qrpoqmL-w
The link below takes you to Angelo’s tirade against Flip Homansky – it starts at 35 seconds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwwdLKKqz0&feature=related
The link below takes you to Angelo’s words to Sugar Ray Leonard against Tommy Hearns – it starts at 9:32
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CN4QNOokjI&feature=related
The link below is Dundee’s confusion at the missing sponge – it happens at 7:45
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SbHh9D9wKw
