In Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Teddy Atlas Finds One More Fighter He Can Trust and Love

Published

6 years ago

March 26, 2019

Teddy Atlas was so very young, just 19, when his mentor, Cus D’Amato, recognized his special gift for comprehending the many nuances of the sport they both loved, and imparting that knowledge to others. The “young master,” D’Amato dubbed Atlas, and the wise-beyond-his-years kid from Staten Island, N.Y., whose own boxing career had been sidetracked by a back injury, soaked up D’Amato’s dictums as if he were a sponge. He trusted Cus implicitly and if the old master, who was 77 when he died on Nov. 4, 1985, instructed him to do something, he did it. Every time.

Well, almost every time.

“I never wanted to love a fighter. It’s a cardinal sin. Cus told me you’re not supposed to do that,” Atlas, 62, recalled of the sole D’Amato rule that never quite took root with him. But not every human being, including boxing trainers, is wired the same, and thus an intractable rule for one might not be the right thing for someone else.

Atlas, forever a Cus disciple in so many ways, has been burned more than a few times by fighters who initially pledged their undying fealty but later chafed at the conditions he had insisted upon at the outset of their association. Love and trust are wonderful things in any personal or professional relationship, but only if it’s a two-way street. When it isn’t, breakups are inevitable and usually painful. Teddy’s pugilistic divorces from, among others, Donny Lalonde, Shannon Briggs, Michael Moorer and Alexander Povetkin – champions all – left scars upon his psyche as deep and distinctive as the one down the left side of his face, which required 400 stitches (200 inside, 200 outside) to close and was inflicted long ago by a knife-wielding opponent in a street fight.

“I look back sometimes and I wonder how the hell did I do this with so many fighters, going back more than 40 years, and still be whole,” Atlas recalled of a career that will gain him induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame on June 9 – but as a commentator for television, not as a trainer, which he has always considered himself to be first and foremost.

“But I’m not completely whole,” he pointed out. “You do lose bits and pieces of yourself, and maybe that’s why you hesitate before you do it again.”

After the retirement of former super lightweight and welterweight titlist Timothy Bradley Jr., a fighter loved and trusted by Atlas to a degree he thought might be beyond duplication, the recalcitrant trainer was even more reluctant to believe he could expose himself to the possibility of having more jagged bits and pieces of his inner self cut away. Oh, the offers still came pouring in, from talented fighters and their managers, many of whom might be prepared to talk a good game when it came to the nitty-gritty of committing to always doing things the Atlas way. And for any potential pupil – Atlas sees his role as that of an intense but caring teacher — going part or even most of the way was never going to be sufficient for someone who demands 100 percent, of himself as well as of his fighter.

“I’m afraid,” Atlas said of his apprehension of again plunging into a part of his life that could be, at alternate turns, exhilarating or depressing. “I don’t mind saying that. Some people say fear is a forbidden word, a taboo word, because it shows vulnerability. But we’re all vulnerable, I think, whether we show it or tell it. I’m strong when I have to be, but part of being strong is knowing that you can be hurt. It’s just being honest with yourself.”

But Atlas’ children, Nicole and Teddy III, knew their father well enough to recognize that his being semi-idle and unfulfilled was as bad or worse than risking more disappointment. Teddy Atlas’ destiny was made clear to him at an early age, and what he needed, maybe more than he realized, was another opportunity, albeit just the right one, to again do what he was meant to do.

So Atlas will again be the chief second for WBC light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk (16-0, 13 KOs) of the Ukraine when he defends his title against Doudou Ngumbu (38-8, 14 KOs), of France by way of his native Congo, in the ESPN-televised main event Saturday night at the 2300 Arena in South Philadelphia. It will be just the second fight together for Gvozdyk and Atlas, the first being Gvozdyk’s dethronement of long-reigning WBC champ Adonis Stevenson, via 11^th-round knockout, on Dec. 1, 2018, in Quebec City, Canada. It might be said that Atlas and Gvozdyk, 31, are still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, but Nicole Atlas thinks this is a union that benefits both parties and has a chance to go the distance.

“My dad has had a lot of fighters, and his share of great ones,” said Nicole, an attorney whose childhood and adolescence were so immersed in her father’s occupation that she came to think of the men he trained almost as surrogate brothers. “We spent many holidays with the fighters and their families.

“You know, it’s kind of funny. In the twilight of his career – I guess it’s never too late – he finds Alex (Gvozdyk), who is the perfect fighter for him. Not everyone has the personality and makeup to be trained by my dad. He likes to control every aspect of training camp and, because he puts everything he has into it, he expects no less from his fighters. And Alex does that. That’s part of what makes their relationship work. It’s still early on, but you can see that there’s a special chemistry between them.”

Gvozdyk said that special chemistry was not instantaneous. The first contact with Atlas was made by Gvozdyk’s manager, Egis Klimas, who invited Atlas to fly out to Oxnard, Calif., where Gvozdyk now resides, for a get-together to determine if fighter and would-be trainer might prove a good fit.

“It was difficult at first, because I was two months before the biggest fight of my life,” Gvozdyk recalled. “When Teddy came for a weekend he never told me whether he was going to train me or not. I couldn’t understand why. But we talked a lot. I introduced him to my family. I think he wanted to find out what kind of person I am. I waited two weeks before he made his decision.

“I am so glad he trusts me and agreed to train me. People need to be important not only for themselves, but for somebody else. Teddy makes me a better fighter. But I think I help him in some ways, too. It is important to him to be a trainer, to have someone to teach. This is what he does best. He was born to teach boxing. He is still a pretty young person at 62. This is not a time for him to retire. If he can do this and enjoy it, staying involved in boxing is really the only right decision for him.”

Interestingly, it is Nicole and Teddy III, who is the head of scouting for the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, who urged their father to fly to California to determine whether he and Gvozdyk might be compatible on a personal as well as a professional level. It’s not the first time that Atlas’ children had nudged him back into a sometimes-harsh game, having done so previously with Bradley.

“My children are smarter than me,” Atlas said. “I’m very blessed by what kind of people they are, how caring they are, how intuitive they are. They both told me that Alex was the perfect fighter for me. I would not have gotten involved again if that hadn’t been the case. I was inclined to say no; I’d had enough. I’d lost trust in the business of the game, for different reasons. When Egis called me and asked if I would consider training Alex, my initial thought was to stay out.

“But then my children reminded me of how I had told them about the privilege I had had to be a trainer and a teacher. They said I had a gift and the privilege to do that and, like all gifts, it doesn’t last forever. Yes, it is a job and it can be a heavy responsibility, but it’s also a privilege. I could still help someone to improve.

“So who knows? Maybe I’m being given another opportunity to do what I was put on this earth to do.”

It might be the last such opportunity and privilege. Unlike some other trainers who already are or eventually will be enshrined in the IBHOF, Atlas is selective. He cannot fathom how other trainers can work with 10 or 12 fighters, parceling snippets of their time to each instead of going all-in with just one.

“I know this (his involvement with Gvozdyk) could lead to something special,” Atlas said. “I get that. But I also know that it can lead to something I don’t want it to lead to, and I know what it can take out of me.

“Right now there’s only one fighter I could even think about training, and it’s the one I am training. I can only do this for a special person, and this kid is a special person.”

Bernard Fernandez is the retired boxing writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. He is a five-term former president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, an inductee into the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Atlantic City Boxing Halls of Fame and the recipient of the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism and the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service to Boxing.

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Cardoso, Nunez, and Akitsugi Bring Home the Bacon in Plant City

Published

3 hours ago

December 11, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Cardoso-Nunez-and-Agitsuki-Bring-Home-the-Bacon-in-Plant-City

The final ShoBox event of 2025 played out tonight at the company’s regular staging ground in Plant City, Florida. When the smoke cleared, the “A-side” fighters in the featured bouts were 3-0 in step-up fights vs. battle-tested veterans, two of whom were former world title challengers. However, the victors in none of the three fights, with the arguable exception of lanky bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi, made any great gain in public esteem.

In the main event, a lightweight affair, Jonhatan Cardoso, a 25-year-old Brazilian, earned a hard-fought, 10-round unanimous decision over Los Mochis, Mexico southpaw Eduardo Ramirez. The decision would have been acceptable to most neutral observers if it had been deemed a draw, but the Brazilian won by scores of 97-93 and 96-94 twice.

Cardoso, now 18-1 (15), had the crowd in his corner., This was his fourth straight appearance in Plant City. Ramirez, disadvantaged by being the smaller man with a shorter reach, declined to 28-5-3.

Co-Feature

In a 10-round featherweight fight that had no indelible moments, Luis Reynaldo Nunez advanced to 20-0 (13) with a workmanlike 10-round unanimous decision over Mexico’s Leonardo Baez. The judges had it 99-91 and 98-92 twice.

Nunez, from the Dominican Republic, is an economical fighter who fights behind a tight guard. Reputedly 85-5 as an amateur, he is managed by Sampson Lewkowicz who handles David Benavidez among others and trained by Bob Santos. Baez (22-5) was returning to the ring after a two-year hiatus.

Also

In a contest slated for “10,” ever-improving bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi improved to 12-0 (3 KOs) with a sixth-round stoppage of Filipino import Aston Palicte (28-7-1). Akitsugi caught Palicte against the ropes and unleashed a flurry of punches climaxed by a right hook. Palicte went down and was unable to beat the count. The official time was 1:07 of round six.

This was the third straight win by stoppage for Akitsugi, a 27-year-old southpaw who trains at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card gym in LA under Roach’s assistant Eddie Hernandez. Palicte, who had been out of the ring for 16 months, is a former two-time world title challenger at superflyweight (115).

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Introducing Jaylan Phillips, Boxing’s Palindrome Man

Published

2 days ago

December 9, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Introducing-Jaylan-Phillips-Boxing's-Palindrome-Man

On Thursday, Nov. 28, as Americans hunkered down at the dinner table with family and friends for our annual Thanksgiving Day feast, junior welterweight Jaylan Phillips and his trainer Kevin Henry were up in the sky flying from Las Vegas to Rochester, New York. For their Thanksgiving repast, they were offered a tiny bag of peanuts.

Phillips would not have eaten too much had the opportunity presented itself. The next day was the weigh-in. On Saturday, the 30^th, he would compete in the 6-round main event of a small club show.

Phillips wasn’t brought to Rochester to win. His opponent, Wilfredo Flores, had a checkered career but he had once held a regional title and he lived in the general area. In boxing parlance, Jaylan Phillips was the “B” side. His role, from the promoter’s standpoint, was to fatten the record of the house fighter.

Jaylan didn’t follow the script. He won a unanimous decision over his 11-3-1 opponent, advancing his record to 4-3-4, and returned to Las Vegas with a new nickname, albeit not one of his own choosing or intended as a permanent accessory. This reporter dubbed him The Palindrome Man.

A palindrome is a word that spells the same backward and forward. Phillips’ current record is palindrome-ish.

It’s an odd record. One would be hard-pressed to find other active boxers with a slew of draws inside a small window of fights. It harks to the days, circa 1900, when some journeymen boxers accumulated as many draws as wins and losses combined.

A boxer with a 4-3-4 record would seem to be an unlikely candidate for a feature story, but the affable Jaylan Phillips is not your run-of-the-mill prizefighter.

Boxers, as we know, tend to be city folk, drawn from the black belts and the barrios of America’s urban places. Phillips grew up in Ebro, Florida, population 237 per the 2020 U.S. census. Ebro is in the Florida panhandle in the northwestern part of the state in a county that was dry until 2022. It is 23 miles due north of Panama City Beach but a world apart from the seaside Florida resort town and its pricey beachfront condos.

Of those 237 people, only five identified as African-American or black, or so it would be written, but the census-taker was obviously slothful. “That’s a crazy number,” says Phillips. “There has to be at least 40 or 50. And the reason I know that is that we are all related.”

“What does one do for excitement in Ebro?” we asked him. “Hunting, fishing, trapping, that sort of thing,” he said. And what does one trap? “Mostly raccoons,” he said, while adding that some of the elders in his extended family consider it a delicacy.

Phillips fought in Rochester, New York, on Saturday and was back in the gym in Las Vegas on Tuesday. He lives alone and does not own a car. His apartment, near UNLV, is three-and-a-half miles from the Top Rank Gym where he does most of his training. He jogs there and then jogs home again, this in a city where the temperature routinely exceeds 100 degrees for much of the year.

During his high school years, Phillips, now 25, concedes that he smoked a lot of weed and it impacted his grades. His interest in boxing was fueled by the exploits of Roy Jones Jr, another fighter with roots in the Florida panhandle. In his spare time, he enjoys watching tapes of old Sugar Ray Robinson fights which can be found on youtube. “He was the best,” says Phillips of Robinson who has been dead for 35 years, echoing an opinion that hasn’t diminished with the passage of time.

In his second pro fight, Phillips was thrust against a baby-faced novice from Cleveland, Abdullah Mason. Although Mason was only 17 years old, the Top Rank matchmaker did Jaylan no favors. He was still standing when the referee waived the fight off in the second round.

About the heavily-hyped Mason, Phillips says, “He’s a beast, like they say, but I would love to fight him again. I took that fight on two weeks’ notice. I’m confident the outcome would have been different if I had had a full camp.”

This observation will undoubtedly strike some as a delusion. Pound for pound, the precocious Mason just may be the top pro fighter in the world in his age group. But Jaylan isn’t lacking confidence which spills over when he talks about what lies ahead for him. “I will be a world champion,” he says matter-of-factly. And after boxing? “I see myself back home in Ebro living a humble life, hunting and fishing, but with a million dollars in the bank.”

If unswerving dedication and self-confidence are the keys to a successful boxing career, then Jaylan Phillips, notwithstanding his 4-3-4 record, is destined for big things. But here’s the rub:

“In boxing, it isn’t what you earn, but what you negotiate,” says the esteemed British boxing pundit Steve Bunce alluding to the importance of a well-connected manager. In a perfect world, each win would be stepping-stone to a bigger fight with a commensurately larger purse. But in this chaotic sport, a “B side” fighter who scores an upset in a low-level fight may actually be penalized for his “impertinence.” Promoters may be wary of using him again (the old “risk/reward” encumbrance) and, in a sport where it’s important for an up-and-comer to stay busy, his progress may be stalled.

Phillips doesn’t know when his next assignment will materialize, but regardless he will keep plugging along while setting an example that others who aspire to greatness would be wise to emulate.

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Emanuel Navarrete and Rafael Espinoza Shine in Phoenix

Published

4 days ago

December 7, 2024

Phil Woolever

Emanuel Navarrete and Rafael Espinoza Shine in Phoenix

PHOENIX – Saturday was a busy night on the global boxing scene, and it’s quite likely that the howling attendees in Phoenix’s Footprint Center witnessed the finest overall card of the international schedule. The many Mexican flags on display in the packed, scaled down arena signaled the event’s theme.

Co-main events featured rematches that arose from a pair of prior crowd-pleasing slugfests. Each of tonight’s headlining bouts ended at the halfway point, but that was their only similarity.

Emanuel “Vaquero” Navarrete, now 39-2-1 (32), defended his WBO Junior Lightweight belt with a dramatic stoppage of more-than-willing Oscar Valdez, 32-3 (24). The 29-year-old champion spoke of retirement wishes, but after dominating a blazing battle in which he scored three knockdowns, his only focus was relaxing during the holidays then getting back to what sounded like long-term business.

“Valdez was extremely tough in this fight,” said Navarrete. “I knew I had to push him back and I did. You are now witnessing the second phase of my career and you can expect great things from me in 2025.”

“I don’t really know about the future,” said the crestfallen, 33-year-old Valdez. “No excuses. He did what he wanted to and I couldn’t.”

Navarrete, a three-division titlist, came up one scorecard short of a fourth belt in his previous fight last May, a split decision loss to Denys Berinchyk. This was Navarrete’s fourth Arizona appearance so he was cheered like a homeboy, but Valdez was definitely the crowd favorite, evident from the cheers that erupted as both fighters were shown arriving in glistening, low rider automobiles.

Both men came out throwing huge shots, but it was Navarrete who scored a flash knockdown in the first round, setting the tone for the rest of the fight. There was fierce action in every frame, with Navarrete getting the best of most of it, but even when he was in trouble Valdez roared back and brought the crowd to their feet. He got dropped again at the very end of round four, and Navarrete sent his mouthpiece into orbit the round after that.

When Navarrette drove Valdez into the ropes during round six it looked like referee Raul Caiz, Jr was about to intervene, but before he could decide, Navarrete finished matters himself with a perfect left to the ribs that crumpled Valdez into a KO at 2:42.

“He talked about getting ready to retire soon so I told him we had to fight again right now,” said Valdez prior to the rematch. There were numerous “be careful what you wish for” type predictions of doom and he entered the ring at around a two to one underdog, understanding the contest’s make or break stakes. “Boxing penalizes you if you have a lot of losses,” observed Valdez. “It’s not like other sports where you can lose and do better next season. In boxing, most people don’t want to see you again after a couple of losses.”

What Valdez might decide remains to be seen, but even in defeat he proved to be a warrior worth watching.

Co-Feature

After their epic, razor-close encounter almost exactly a year ago, it was obvious Rafael Espinoza, and fellow 30-year-old Robeisy Ramirez should meet again for the WBO featherweight title belt Espinoza earned by an upset majority decision. Espinoza turned the trick again this time around, inside the distance, but it was more anti-climactic than anything like toe-to-toe.

The 6’1” Espinoza, now 26-0 (22), was the aggressor from the opening frame, but 5’6” Ramirez, 14-3 (9) employed his short stature well to stay out of immediate danger and countered to the body for a slight edge. The Cuban challenger avoided much of their previous firefight and initially controlled the tempo. The crowd jeered him for staying away but it was an effective strategy, at least at first.

Espinoza connected much better in the fifth round and looked fresher as Ramirez’s face rapidly reddened. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere in round six, Ramirez took a punch then raised a glove in surrender. Whatever the reason, even looking at Ramirez’s swollen right eye, it looked like a “No Mas” moment. Replays showed a straight right to the eye socket, but that didn’t stop the crowd from hooting their disgust after ref Chris Flores signaled the end at 0:12.

***

Richard Torrez, Jr, now 12-0 (11), displayed his Olympic silver medal pedigree in a heavyweight bout against Issac Munoz, 18-2-1 (15). Torrez, 236.6, found his punching range quickly with southpaw leads as Munoz, 252, tried to stand his ground but looked hurt by early body work that forced him into the ropes. He was gasping for breath as Torrez peppered him in the second, and Munoz went back to his corner on unsteady legs.

Munoz’s team should have thought about saving him for another day in the third as he ate big shots. Luckily, referee Raul Caiz, Jr. was wiser and had seen enough, waving it off for a TKO at 0:59.

“I don’t train for the opponent,” reflected Torrez, who isn’t far from true contender status. “Every time I train, I train for a world championship fight.”

***

Super-lightweight Lindolfo Delgado, 139.9, improved to 22-0 (16), and took another step into the world title picture against Jackson Marinez, now 22-4 (10), 139.2.

On paper this junior welterweight matchup appeared fairly even, and Marinez managed to keep it that way for almost half the scheduled ten rounds against a solid prospect but Delgado kept upping the ante until Marinez was out of chips. The assembled swarm was whistling for more action after three tentative opening frames, as Delgado loaded up but couldn’t put much offense together.

That changed in the 4th when Delgado connected with solid crosses. In the fifth, a fine combination dropped Marinez into a delayed knockdown and a wicked follow-up right to the guts finished the wobbly Marinez, who had nothing to be ashamed of, off in the arms of ref Wes Melton. Official TKO time was 2:13.

In a matter of concurrent programming, Saturday also held a lot of highly publicized college football and basketball games which likely detracted from the larger mainstream audience and media coverage this fight card deserved. That’s a shame but you can’t fault boxing, Top Rank, or any of the fighters for that because, once again, they all came through big time in Phoenix.

Photos credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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