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

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 11th-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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Avila Perspective, Chap. 323: British Family Feud and More

ext generation rivals Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. carry on the family legacy of feudal warring in the prize ring on Saturday.
This is huge in British boxing.
Eubank (34-3, 25 KOs) holds the fringe IBO middleweight title but won’t be defending it against the smaller welterweight Benn (23-0, 14 KOs) on Saturday, April 26, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. DAZN will stream the Matchroom Boxing card.
This is about family pride.
The parents of Eubank and Benn actually began the feud in the 1990s.
Papa Nigel Benn fought Papa Chris Eubank twice. Losing as a middleweight in November 1990 at Birmingham, England, then fighting to a draw as a super middleweight in October 1993 in Manchester. Both were world title fights.
Eubank was undefeated and won the WBO middleweight world title in 1990 against Nigel Benn by knockout. He defended it three times before moving up and winning the vacant WBO super middleweight title in September 1991. He defended the super middleweight title 14 times until suffering his first pro defeat in March 1995 against Steve Collins.
Benn won the WBO middleweight title in April 1990 against Doug DeWitt and defended it once before losing to Eubank in November 1990. He moved up in weight and took the WBC super middleweight title from Mauro Galvano in Italy by technical knockout in October 1992. He defended the title nine times until losing in March 1996. His last fight was in November 1996, a loss to Steve Collins.
Animosity between the two families continues this weekend in the boxing ring.
Conor Benn, the son of Nigel, has fought mostly as a welterweight but lately has participated in the super welterweight division. He is several inches shorter in height than Eubank but has power and speed. Kind of a British version of Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
“It’s always personal, every opponent I fight is personal. People want to say it’s strictly business, but it’s never business. If someone is trying to put their hands on me, trying to render me unconscious, it’s never business,” said Benn.
This fight was scheduled twice before and cut short twice due to failed PED tests by Benn. The weight limit agreed upon is 160 pounds.
Eubank, a natural middleweight, has exchanged taunts with Benn for years. He recently avenged a loss to Liam Smith with a knockout victory in September 2023.
“This fight isn’t about size or weight. It’s about skill. It’s about dedication. It’s about expertise and all those areas in which I excel in,” said Eubank. “I have many, many more years of experience over Conor Benn, and that will be the deciding factor of the night.”
Because this fight was postponed twice, the animosity between the two feuding fighters has increased the attention of their fans. Both fighters are anxious to flatten each other.
“He’s another opponent in my way trying to crush my dreams. trying to take food off my plate and trying to render me unconscious. That’s how I look at him,” said Benn.
Eubank smiles.
“Whether it’s boxing, whether it’s a gun fight. Defense, offense, foot movement, speed, power. I am the superior boxer in each of those departments and so many more – which is why I’m so confident,” he said.
Supporting Bout
Former world champion Liam Smith (33-4-1, 20 KOs) tangles with Ireland’s Aaron McKenna (19-0, 10 KOs) in a middleweight fight set for 12 rounds on the Benn-Eubank undercard in London.
“Beefy” Smith has long been known as one of the fighting Smith brothers and recently lost to Eubank a year and a half ago. It was only the second time in 38 bouts he had been stopped. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did it several years ago.
McKenna is a familiar name in Southern California. The Irish fighter fought numerous times on Golden Boy Promotion cards between 2017 and 2019 before returning to the United Kingdom and his assault on continuing the middleweight division. This is a big step for the tall Irish fighter.
It’s youth versus experience.
“I’ve been calling for big fights like this for the last two or three years, and it’s a fight I’m really excited for. I plan to make the most of it and make a statement win on Saturday night,” said McKenna, one of two fighting brothers.
Monster in L.A.
Japan’s super star Naoya “Monster” Inoue arrived in Los Angeles for last day workouts before his Las Vegas showdown against Ramon Cardenas on Sunday May 4, at T-Mobile Arena. ESPN will televise and stream the Top Rank card.
It’s been four years since the super bantamweight world champion performed in the US and during that time Naoya (29-0, 26 KOs) gathered world titles in different weight divisions. The Japanese slugger has also gained fame as perhaps the best fighter on the planet. Cardenas is 26-1 with 14 KOs.
Pomona Fights
Super featherweights Mathias Radcliffe (9-0-1) and Ezequiel Flores (6-4) lead a boxing card called “DMG Night of Champions” on Saturday April 26, at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Pomona, Calif.
Michaela Bracamontes (11-2-1) and Jesus Torres Beltran (8-4-1) will be fighting for a regional WBC super featherweight title. More than eight bouts are scheduled.
Doors open at 6 p.m. For ticket information go to: www.tix.com/dmgnightofchampions
Fights to Watch
Sat. DAZN 9 a.m. Conor Benn (23-0) vs Chris Eubank Jr. (34-3); Liam Smith (33-4-1) vs Aaron McKenna (19-0).
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Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton

Floyd Mayweather has Another Phenom and his name is Curmel Moton
In any endeavor, the defining feature of a phenom is his youth. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper was a phenom. He was on the radar screen of baseball’s most powerful player agents when he was 14 years old.
Curmel Moton, who turns 19 in June, is a phenom. Of all the young boxing stars out there, wrote James Slater in July of last year, “Curmel Moton is the one to get most excited about.”
Moton was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father Curtis Moton, a barber by trade, was a big boxing fan and specifically a big fan of Floyd Mayweather Jr. When Curmel was six, Curtis packed up his wife (Curmel’s stepmom) and his son and moved to Las Vegas. Curtis wanted his son to get involved in boxing and there was no better place to develop one’s latent talents than in Las Vegas where many of the sport’s top practitioners came to train.
Many father-son relationships have been ruined, or at least frayed, by a father’s unrealistic expectations for his son, but when it came to boxing, the boy was a natural and he felt right at home in the gym.
The gym the Motons patronized was the Mayweather Boxing Club. Curtis took his son there in hopes of catching the eye of the proprietor. “Floyd would occasionally drop by the gym and I was there so often that he came to recognize me,” says Curmel. What he fails to add is that the trainers there had Floyd’s ear. “This kid is special,” they told him.
It costs a great deal of money for a kid to travel around the country competing in a slew of amateur boxing tournaments. Only a few have the luxury of a sponsor. For the vast majority, fund raisers such as car washes keep the wheels greased.
Floyd Mayweather stepped in with the financial backing needed for the Motons to canvas the country in tournaments. As an amateur, Curmel was — take your pick — 156-7 or 144-6 or 61-3 (the latter figure from boxrec). Regardless, at virtually every tournament at which he appeared, Curmel Moton was the cock of the walk.
Before the pandemic, Floyd Mayweather Jr had a stable of boxers he promoted under the banner of “The Money Team.” In talking about his boxers, Floyd was understated with one glaring exception – Gervonta “Tank” Davis, now one of boxing’s top earners.
When Floyd took to praising Curmel Moton with the same effusive language, folks stood up and took notice.
Curmel made his pro debut on Sept. 30, 2023, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on the undercard of the super middleweight title fight between Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo. After stopping his opponent in the opening round, he addressed a flock of reporters in the media room with Floyd standing at his side. “I felt ready,” he said, “I knew I had Floyd behind me. He believes in me. I had the utmost confidence going into the fight. And I went in there and did what I do.”
Floyd ventured the opinion that Curmel was already a better fighter than Leigh Wood, the reigning WBA world featherweight champion who would successfully defend his belt the following week.
Moton’s boxing style has been described as a blend of Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis. “I grew up watching Floyd, so it’s natural I have some similarities to him,” says Curmel who sparred with Tank in late November of 2021 as Davis was preparing for his match with Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz. Curmell says he did okay. He was then 15 years old and still in school; he dropped out as soon as he reached the age of 16.
Curmel is now 7-0 with six KOs, four coming in the opening round. He pitched an 8-round shutout the only time he was taken the distance. It’s not yet official, but he returns to the ring on May 31 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas where Caleb Plant and Jermall Charlo are co-featured in matches conceived as tune-ups for a fall showdown. The fight card will reportedly be free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
Curmel’s presumptive opponent is Renny Viamonte, a 28-year-old Las Vegas-based Cuban with a 4-1-1 (2) record. It will be Curmel’s first professional fight with Kofi Jantuah the chief voice in his corner. A two-time world title challenger who began his career in his native Ghana, the 50-year-old Jantuah has worked almost exclusively with amateurs, a recent exception being Mikaela Mayer.
It would seem that the phenom needs a tougher opponent than Viamonte at this stage of his career. However, the match is intriguing in one regard. Viamonte is lanky. Listed at 5-foot-11, he will have a seven-inch height advantage.
Keeping his weight down has already been problematic for Moton. He tipped the scales at 128 ½ for his most recent fight. His May 31 bout, he says, will be contested at 135 and down the road it’s reasonable to think he will blossom into a welterweight. And with each bump up in weight, his short stature will theoretically be more of a handicap.
For fun, we asked Moton to name the top fighter on his pound-for-pound list. “[Oleksandr] Usyk is number one right now,” he said without hesitation,” great footwork, but guys like Canelo, Crawford, Inoue, and Bivol are right there.”
It’s notable that there isn’t a young gun on that list. Usyk is 38, a year older than Crawford; Inoue is the pup at age 32.
Moton anticipates that his name will appear on pound-for-pound lists within the next two or three years. True, history is replete with examples of phenoms who flamed out early, but we wouldn’t bet against it.
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Arne’s Almanac: The First Boxing Writers Assoc. of America Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.
The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.
In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.
The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:
New York Times
New York News
New York World
New York Sun
New York Journal
New York Post
New York Mirror
New York Telegram
New York Graphic
New York Herald Tribune
Brooklyn Eagle
Brooklyn Times
Brooklyn Standard Union
Brooklyn Citizen
Bronx Home News
This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.
The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.
Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)
Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.
Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.
There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.
In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.
There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.
The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.
Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.
The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.
The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.
Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.
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