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Teddy Atlas | |
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 Atlas in 2011 | |
| Born | July 29, 1956 |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Boxing trainer |
| Organization | Dr. Theodore Atlas Foundation |
| Spouse | Elaine |
| Children | Teddy Atlas III and Nicole |
Theodore A. Atlas Jr. (born July 29, 1956) is an American boxing trainer and fight commentator.
The son of a doctor, Atlas grew up in a wealthy area of Staten Island, New York City, New York. His mother, Mary Riley Atlas, was a former contestant in the Miss America pageant system, as well as a model. [1] His father was of Hungarian Jewish ancestry [2] and his mother of Irish descent. Atlas was raised in his mother's Catholic faith and spent summers in Spring Lake, New Jersey, with his family's friends.
By his own admission, Atlas had a somewhat troubled, rebellious youth. He dropped out of school and was arrested several times. He participated in an armed robbery and served time on Rikers Island. Atlas was involved in a street fight in Stapleton, Staten Island, in which his face was severely slashed with a "007" pocketknife. The wound took 400 stitches in total to close, with 200 on the outside of his face and 200 on the inside. The attack left him with a distinctive scar.
Atlas trained as an amateur boxer with Hall of Fame trainer Cus D'Amato. He had some amateur fights and won a 135-pound Golden Gloves title but had to turn to work as a trainer due to a back injury. [3] Atlas was an assistant to D'Amato, although his role in the Catskill Boxing Club was short-lived. In 1980 he trained Sweden Olympic Boxing Team for 1980 Summer Olympics. [4] His duties included assisting in the training of D'Amato's teenage protégé Mike Tyson. However, Atlas left the camp in 1982 following an altercation with the 15-year-old Tyson after Tyson had been sexually inappropriate with an 11-year-old female relative of Atlas' (Tyson said he had grabbed the girl's buttocks). Atlas put a .38 caliber handgun to Tyson's ear and told him to never touch his family again, or he would kill him if he did. [5] This altercation between Atlas and a young Mike Tyson led to Atlas' dismissal from the Catskill Boxing Club, and he was told he was no longer welcome in D'Amato's home or around any of his adopted children (his fighters whom he had legally adopted, Tyson included).
Atlas enjoyed his biggest success as head trainer to Michael Moorer, whom he guided to the world heavyweight title in 1994. He drew criticism for what some considered to be overly dramatic speeches in the ring corner, particularly during Moorer's heavyweight title fight with Evander Holyfield, and some felt he did this to draw attention to himself rather than help his fighter. During one such speech, Atlas blocked Moorer from sitting on his stool and asked, "Do you want me to take over?" Atlas has denied this, [6] stating that he did what he believed the fighter needed based on his understanding of the fighter. Moorer went on to defeat Holyfield by a majority decision, with Moorer's manager John Davimos crediting Atlas' motivation, stating "I don't know if Michael could have done this without Teddy Atlas." [7]
Atlas also worked the corners of featherweight world champion Barry McGuigan in one fight and light heavyweight Donny Lalonde. [8] Lalonde was a top-ranked boxer and went 8–0 with Atlas as his trainer, but they clashed in temperament and style. "He ran things like an army camp," Lalonde said, "I'm more of a free spirit." Lalonde also said it was a waste of time in his career. He and Atlas parted ways, and Lalonde hired Tommy Gallagher as his new trainer. In his autobiography, Atlas claimed he was so angry at having been fired by Lalonde that he went to Lalonde's house with a gun intending to kill him. However, Lalonde refuted Atlas' story, claiming he did not even live at the apartment Atlas described at the time. Lalonde also called Atlas "the least significant of all my trainers throughout my career." [9]
In 2009, Atlas began training Russian heavyweight Alexander Povetkin as Povetkin prepared for an eventual title match against Wladimir Klitschko. Povetkin was a former world amateur champ and was the number one contender. Atlas said that Povetkin "wasn't ready" for Klitschko [10]
In 2015, Atlas returned to training to prepare Timothy Bradley for his welterweight title defense against Brandon Rios. With Atlas in his corner, Bradley knocked out Rios in the ninth round of their fight, which took place on November 7, 2015, in Las Vegas.
In September 2018 Atlas agreed to train Oleksandr Gvozdyk for upcoming fight with Adonis Stevenson on December 1, 2018 in Montreal for WBC and lineal light heavyweight titles. [11]
In 2019, when asked who, in his opinion, was the best overall of the boxers he had trained, he said Wilfred Benítez. [12]
Atlas served as a commentator for ESPN, formerly for ESPN2's Friday Night Fights and Wednesday Night Fights and later for ESPN's Premier Boxing Champions fights. On January 25, 2008, Atlas was suspended by ESPN twice, once for threatening a crew member and once (for one week) after confronting the network's boxing program director, Doug Loughrey. Atlas accused Loughrey of showing favoritism to certain promoters and matchmakers, who were abusing their ESPN connections by taking fighters from other promoters with promises of potential ESPN dates. [13] In December 2017, Atlas was removed from ESPN's live fight coverage after 21 years of ringside commentating following his criticism of the judging in the Manny Pacquiao–Jeff Horn fight. [14] He is in contract until 2020, [14] and continues to provide boxing analysis for ESPN.
In 2001, Atlas won the Sam Taub Award for excellence in boxing broadcasting journalism. [15] Atlas worked as a boxing commentator for NBC's coverage of the Olympic Games in Sydney (2000), Athens (2004), Beijing (2008), [16] London (2012) and Rio de Janeiro (2016).
Atlas was a contributor on fight doctor Ferdie Pacheco's The 12 Greatest Rounds of Boxing DVD. In it, he stated that in the first Ali-Liston fight, during the famous "blind round" in which Ali could not see after being hit by Liston's gloves which had been smeared in a substance that temporarily blinded Ali, he would have refused to have cut Ali's gloves off and would have simply sent him out with the advice to just "run".[ citation needed ]
Atlas is also featured as a member of the in-game commentary team on Fight Night Round 4 and Fight Night Champion , alongside Joe Tessitore. [17]
In 1989 he was part of the cast and the crew in the film Triumph of the Spirit which portrays the story of Salamo Arouch, a Jewish Greek boxer who survived the Holocaust by boxing (over 200 bouts) for the entertainment of German Nazi officers in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Atlas played the role of Klaus Silber, main antagonist in the movie. He was also a boxing consultant for Willem Dafoe. [18]
Atlas is married to Elaine, [19] with whom he has two children: Teddy III and Nicole. Teddy III is a scout for the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl. [20]
In 1997, he founded the Dr. Theodore Atlas Foundation to honor the memory of his father. The foundation awards scholarships and grants to individuals and organizations. Atlas published his autobiography, Atlas: From the Streets to the Ring: A Son's Struggle to Become a Man, in 2006. The book covers many different periods of Atlas's life and compares his position as trainer to a role as a father.
Atlas has been inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.
Michael Gerard Tyson is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 2005, with a post-retirement fight in 2024. Nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and later known as "the Baddest Man on the Planet", Tyson is regarded as one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990. Tyson won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. Claiming his first belt at 20 years, 4 months, and 22 days old, Tyson holds the record as the youngest boxer ever to win a heavyweight title. He was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Council (WBC), and International Boxing Federation (IBF) titles, as well as the only heavyweight to unify them in succession. The following year, Tyson became the lineal champion when he knocked out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds of the first round. In 1990, Tyson lost the undisputed heavyweight championship when he was knocked out by underdog Buster Douglas, making it one of the biggest upsets in boxing history.
José Louis "Chegüi" Torres was a Puerto Rican-born professional boxer who fought representing the United States. As an amateur boxer, he won a silver medal in the middleweight division at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. In 1965, he defeated Willie Pastrano to win the WBC, WBA, and lineal light-heavyweight championships. Torres trained with the legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato. In 1997, he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Floyd Patterson was an American professional boxer who competed from 1952 to 1972, and twice reigned as the world heavyweight champion between 1956 and 1962. At the age of 21, he became the youngest boxer in history to win the title, and was also the first heavyweight to regain the title after losing it. As an amateur, he won a gold medal in the middleweight division at the 1952 Summer Olympics. He has been named among the top 15 heavyweights of all time.
Michael Lee Moorer is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2008. He won a world championship on four occasions in two weight classes, having held the WBO light heavyweight title from 1988 to 1991; compiling 22 straight KOs in 22 fights and the WBO heavyweight title from 1992 to 1993; the unified WBA, IBF and lineal heavyweight titles in 1994; and regained the IBF heavyweight title again from 1996 to 1997 becoming a three-time heavyweight world champion.
Donny Lalonde is a retired professional boxer. His nickname is "Golden Boy," after the Golden Boy statue atop the Manitoba Legislative Building in his boxing home town of Winnipeg. Lalonde held the WBC Light Heavyweight Championship from 1987 to 1988.
Constantine "Cus" D'Amato was an American boxing manager and trainer who handled the careers of Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson, and José Torres, all of whom went on to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Several successful boxing trainers, including Teddy Atlas and Kevin Rooney, were tutored by D'Amato. He was a proponent of the peek-a-boo style of boxing, in which the fighter holds his gloves close to his cheeks and pulls his arms tight against his torso, which was criticized by some because it was believed that an efficient attack could not be launched from using the technique.
William D'Arcy Cayton was a boxing promoter and manager. Clients included Mike Tyson, who sued him, yet retained him as manager when the two settled the lawsuit four years later, in 1988. Cayton also acted as a film historian and producer to preserve boxing's legacy. During his career, Cayton founded or co-founded several companies, including Cayton Sports, Inc., Reel Sports., Inc., Radio and Television Packagers, Inc. and Cayton, Inc.
Kevin Rooney is an American retired boxer and boxing trainer.
Peek-a-boo is a boxing style which received its common name for the defensive hand position, which are normally placed in front of the face, like in the baby's game of the same name. The technique is thought to offer extra protection to the face while making it easier to jab the opponent's face. The fighter holds their gloves close to their cheeks and pulls their arms tight against their torso. A major proponent of the style was trainer Cus D'Amato, who did not use the term peek-a-boo and instead referred to it as a "tight defense." The style was criticized by some because it was believed that an efficient attack could not be launched from it.
Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk is a Ukrainian professional boxer. He has held the unified world heavyweight championship since 2021, and the Ring magazine title since 2022. He has held the undisputed championship in two weight classes—cruiserweight and heavyweight—and reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion from May to June 2024.
Tyson is a 1995 American biographical drama television film based on the life of American heavyweight boxer Iron Mike Tyson. Directed by Uli Edel and written by Robert Johnson, it stars Michael Jai White as Tyson alongside George C. Scott as Cus D'Amato and Paul Winfield as Don King. The film is an adaptation of the 1989 biography Fire and Fear: The Inside Story of Iron Mike Tyson by José Torres, a former boxer and former chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, and depicts events from Tyson's troubled childhood in Brooklyn through his conviction in 1992 for the rape of beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington.
Seamus McDonagh is a retired professional boxer who currently works as an actor, screenwriter and filmmaker.
James Leslie Jacobs was an American handball player, boxing manager, and comic book and fight film collector.
Mike Tyson vs. Michael Spinks, billed as Once and For All, was a professional boxing match which took place on June 27, 1988. Both fighters were undefeated and each had a claim to being the legitimate heavyweight champion. At the time, Tyson held the belts of all three of the major sanctioning organizations while Spinks was The Ring and Lineal champion. The fight was held at the Convention Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey U.S., it was at the time the richest fight in boxing history, grossing some $70 million, of which Tyson earned a record purse of around $22 million and Spinks $13.5 million. Tyson won the fight, knocking out Spinks in 91 seconds.
Oleksandr Serhiyovych Gvozdyk is a Ukrainian professional boxer. He held the WBC and lineal light-heavyweight titles from 2018 to 2019. As an amateur, Gvozdyk won a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics and a gold at the 2013 Summer Universiade.
Joseph Hadley is an American retired boxer from Jackson, Tennessee, who competed in middleweight division in the 1970s, one of a few trained by Cus D'Amato himself, and also one of the first documented U.S. mixed martial artists. He was selected a member of the All-American AAU boxing team for 1973, and was named the top middleweight amateur boxer in the nation in 1973 by the National AAU Boxing Committee. Hadley drew attention of the press and public by carrying a Bible into the ring, hence his nickname "Preacher," which reflects he actually was a minister. For that reason Hadley refused to pose for a picture with Muhammad Ali, "because Mr. Ali does not live tip to my principles according to the Bible."
"Irish" Bobby Stewart won the National Golden Gloves Tournament in 1974 as a light heavyweight. He also fought at the US-hosted undercard of The Rumble in the Jungle as a professional boxer, but he will be best remembered as the first trainer for Mike Tyson, who discovered Tyson's tremendous potential and introduced him to boxing in 1980.
Steve Lott was the CEO of Boxing Hall of Fame Las Vegas Nevada, boxing manager, former film editor at ESPN, and assistant to fight managers of the time Bill Cayton and Jim Jacobs, who financed Mike Tyson's boxing coach and life mentor Cus D'Amato, boxing film historian.
Non-compromised Pendulum is a book about the fight system of the boxing coach Cus D'Amato, known as a peek-a-boo. The book, written by the Ukrainian scientist and martial arts researcher Oleg Maltsev and D'Amato's mentee Tom Patti, was published in the English language in 2018, which can be accessed by anybody free of charge, to preserve the legacy of Cus Damato.
Michael Moorer vs. Vaughn Bean, billed as The March of Ides, was a professional boxing match contested on March 29, 1997, for the IBF heavyweight title.
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