Roach doubts Atlas’ impact

When Tim Bradley faced Manny Pacquiao in 2012 and 2014, the reigning WBO welterweight champion had trainer Joel Diaz in his corner. Bradley won the first fight on a highly disputed split decision while Pacquiao clearly took the second, leaving no doubt who is the better fighter.

On April 9, Bradley will stake his 147-pound title against Pacquiao in a rubber match that could be the Filipino icon’s farewell bout. Diaz won’t be in Bradley’s corner for the Las Vegas duel. Instead, it will be new trainer Teddy Atlas who made his debut in Bradley’s camp when the former WBC superlightweight champion stopped Brandon Rios last November.

Atlas has been involved in boxing since he was 19, working as an apprentice for Cus D’Amato whose fighters included Mike Tyson, Jose Torres and Floyd Patterson. In 1998, Atlas transitioned from the gym to the TV booth where he gained a reputation as a no-nonsense boxing commentator. Atlas stayed in the business of training fighters on a selective basis.

Atlas, 59, is a feisty, outspoken and tough guy who never backs down from anyone. As a teenager, he got involved in a streetfight that left him with a permanent knife scar down the left side of his face. The wound took 400 stitches to close. He once served time for armed robbery. When a teenaged Tyson grabbed an 11-year-old girl’s buttocks, Atlas put a .38 caliber gun to his ear and eventually left D’Amato’s gym in 1982. He had to be restrained from attacking George Foreman during a press conference for the 1994 fight against Michael Moorer whom he trained. In Moorer’s first fight against Evander Holyfield, Atlas did a switch and sat on the stool in between the eighth and ninth rounds to admonish his underachieving fighter. Moorer went on to win via a majority decision. Atlas was no longer in Moorer’s corner for the rematch that Holyfield won.

Atlas once scuffled with Kirk Johnson, one of the heavyweights he used to train, and his conditioning coach Charles Jordan for skipping and showing up late for practice. His confrontational approach may lack diplomacy but he usually gets his message across.

Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach, however, isn’t impressed. “I didn’t see much improvement in the last fight (Bradley’s win over Rios),” he told George Gigney of Boxing News (London). “He had a fat, overweight guy in front of him. I don’t think we can give him (Atlas) credit yet. If Bradley does better against Manny, we can give him credit but I don’t think that’ll happen. I don’t think being a cheerleader is the best way to train a fighter.” Rios scaled 147 pounds at the weigh-in the day before the fight but entered the ring at 170 against Bradley.

Top Rank CEO Bob Arum said he expects a different Bradley in the ring with Atlas in his corner. “This is a different Bradley under the aegis of Teddy Atlas,” said Arum. “At this point of his career, can Manny handle that? Remember, Manny is also coming of an injury (to his shoulder).”

Pacquiao himself was guarded in his comments about Atlas. “When Bradley took in a new trainer, he became a bit more aggressive,” he said. “If he maintains that fighting style, the fans will be in for a treat.”

It took a special fighter like Bradley to bring Atlas back into the gym. “I don’t take fighters,” said Atlas, quoted by Mike Houser in Boxing Digest (August 2003). “I’m tired of telling men to act like men. I turn down more fighters than I train at this point in my life.” Atlas said his kind of fighter is someone “who lets you be honest with him…who won’t look to have people around him that can help him hide from things, who would bare himself a little bit to see, hear and feel what he needs to be able to capture what he has to capture…to be able to develop what he needs to develop and overcome what he needs to overcome.”

Atlas has been known to walk away from fighters who refused to be disciplined. “Atlas is so real and true to the things he believes in, he’s passed up potential millions in training paydays because he’s become fed up with the extracurricular hassles involved,” wrote Eric Raskin in the Ring Magazine (June 2000). “He could have made $800,000 working motivationally challenged Moorer’s corner for his rematch with Holyfield. He chose instead to walk away.” Another fighter whom he trained and abandoned was heavyweight Shannon Briggs. Atlas split ways with Briggs in 1996 before his big payday fights against Foreman, Lennox Lewis and Frans Botha.

Atlas said with his busy schedule, he trains a fighter only four days a week. “I leave the fighters their instructions and I trust them,” he said. “You have to have a code. This is a serious business. When it’s over, you want to know you’ve done everything you can to have made the changes you’ve needed to be effective in your business and that you haven’t hidden from anything.”

A family man, Atlas and his wife Elaine have two children, Nicole, 31 and Teddy III, 29. “I love my children but sometimes, I’m not doing certain things I want to do because of my business,” he said in 2000. “I can’t lie about that. Anybody that commits to a profession and part of that commitment is to take care of his family – anyone who does that, there’s going to be some losses and compromises where you want to do more personal things than you’re able to do sometimes. I balance it the best I can. They’re older now but I still make sure that I have that time and that communication and that love. They know it. When I’m on the road, I call them everyday and tell them that I love them. But there’s no doubt that you wish you could do more. But you have to give up a little bit.”