Brunt on boxing: Dundee always in Ali’s corner
Posted February 2, 2012 11:21 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Angelo Dundee understood the value of a smile.
That’s how it always began, a cheery greeting, inquiries about old friends –“How are things in Toronto?” — a few shared memories to kick around and then the boxing talk, a lot of boxing talk, and you never wanted it to end.
Dundee (he was born Angelo Mirena in South Philadelphia, and through all of those years in Miami never shook the accent) died Wednesday at the age of 90. He is remembered, of course, for his years training Muhammad Ali, taking over after Ali’s professional debut against Tunney Hunsaker, and working every fight thereafter save for Ali’s match with his longtime sparring partner Jimmy Ellis, in which Dundee worked Ellis’s corner.
Training the most famous fighter in history makes you the most famous trainer in history, and Dundee certainly enjoyed that shared celebrity, handling the spotlight with modesty and unfailing good humour.
He was also with Carmen Basilio and Willie Pastrano, with Sugar Ray Leonard during the best part of his career, and was in the corner of George Foreman the night he miraculously knocked out Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion of all time.
You could argue that Dundee didn’t “make” any of those fighters, especially the big three, that they were original, transcendent talents who were pretty much fully-formed by the time he came along (With Foreman, he didn’t seem to do much other than occasionally mopping his brow). You can point out that he worked with plenty of losers as well, that all of his experience and guile couldn’t transform Pinklon Thomas or Trevor Berbick or hundreds of others into fighters for the ages.
But to do so would be to misunderstand Dundee’s art.
Mike Trainer, Leonard’s long-time advisor, once complained that Dundee didn’t really “train” anybody — that he rolled in a few days before the fight to handle the media and work the corner and collect his percentage, while the tedious and less glamorous work in the gym was left to somebody else.
That wasn’t the case back in the days when he was a “bucket boy” at Stillman’s Gym, or when he was first establishing his reputation in the era of the Friday Night Fights, but it may well have been truer than not later on.
What Dundee did, though, arguably better than anyone else, in addition to keeping the quotes flowing, and taking much of the media pressure off his fighters, was to make the minute between rounds count. He was both master motivator and strategist, and sometimes that mattered most of all; stalling for time after Henry Cooper had knocked Ali down and almost out; pushing him when he wanted to quit in the Thrilla in Manila; hollering at Leonard — “You’re blowing it, son” — at the turning point of his first fight against Thomas Hearns.
Those are the moments for which Dundee will forever be remembered.
He should be remembered, as well, for the subtle and essential role he played in the larger Ali story. After Ali embraced the Nation of Islam, at a time when one of the tenets of the faith was the necessary separation of the races, he was pressured to get rid of Dundee and replace him with a black trainer. Ali refused, and Dundee remained, a buffer, a sounding board, a reality check, a mediator, a calm, happy presence, no matter how chaotic the surroundings of the Ali Circus.
He stuck by Ali through the draft fight, the three years of exile, through the ups and downs, and was still there for the last, sad fights, after others had fled, because Ali wanted him — needed him — there.
Anyone who knew Angelo Dundee understood that sentiment. To have him around was a gift in itself.
