Part 1 of 2 of Boxingtalk’s exclusive Interview
GL: After being a boxing guy you’re whole life, what was it like to call a college football game on ESPN last night?
Teddy Atlas: “It was nice, it was fun. I’m comfortable with sports and obviously with football. My son is a scout for the Oakland Raiders. He’s actually the coordinator of scouting for the Oakland Raiders. I’ve been a fan of football for years, I have a history in football. I trained the New York Jets for three years when (Eric) Mangini was the head coach and they actually listed me in the Jets Guidebook as a coach. Even though I’m obviously not a football coach, they listed me because for three years I gave them boxing lessons and helped them work on their agility skills, their speed skills, their striking skills for the lineman. I also worked with them doing motivational stuff, you know talking to them and teaching them how to control their fears and emotions under the pressure they get paid to play under. I’m very comfortable with the sport and I’ve done a lot of motivational speaking for teams. This year is was the Oakland Raiders before camp started, but I’ve also done it for a few other teams. It was definitely not a strange environment for me and I appreciated ESPN giving me the opportunity to let me do it. I think when you look at things in an analytical way, I think it comes from being a teacher, being a trainer. When you’ve spent as many years as I have, and I’ve been in this game for forty years now, training is as Cus (D’Amato) used to say, you’re a teacher, not just a trainer. You teach people and you try to improve people. To do that you have to analyze what they’re doing wrong so you can help them make it right. And what they’re doing right, so you they can improve and add to that. You have to have that sort of vision and ability to see things that way. For me the sport changed, but the idea of how to look for things and break things down didn’t change. It’s something I’ve been doing as a trainer, as a teacher and as a boxing analyst on ESPN. It wasn’t a big shock to the system, I was just switching from one sport to another, but basically looking for the same things.”
GL: Is it something you see yourself doing more often or was this just a one time thing?
TA: “It’s the second time I’ve done it, the reason I got this opportunity was last year ESPN did a platform for the national title game in college football. They put together me, Jay Bilas, Max Kellerman and a few others, they put us in studios and let us analyze the game as it took place. After that the people at ESPN said we should give Teddy the chance to do another game, that’s where that came from. As far as doing more, I’d be open to it. I’d definitely like to expand my boundaries beyond boxing because of the reasons I just spoke of. It’s up to the people at ESPN what their feelings are towards that, and also the fans. From what I was told, I’m not an internet guy, I don’t go on there, but from what I was told people had nice, gracious things to say after they watched it. As a matter of fact there were some people lobbying for signatures so they can send it to ESPN for me to do more of it. Again, it’s up to ESPN, but it’s nice to hear and feel that people thought I did a good job.”
GL: What are your thoughts on the current state of boxing?
TA: “It’s slow right now. The money is drying up in a lot of places on the networks and there’s not as much money available. I think there was a surplus of money and dates in boxing, which I’m glad for the fighters that got those opportunities when Haymon put together PBC initially. I think there was an overflow of good fortunes and the fighters deserve it and the sport deserves it, but I think it was like a stock market rising high but you knew it was higher than the market could bear and there’s going to be a correction coming, and I think the correction has come. I don’t think the market could bear it, I think some of the monies have dried up. I hope Al (Haymon) is going to continue to be doing boxing, to continue to be viable and for his company to be viable to do that, I really do. I think he has good intentions, but right now it’s stagnant. It went from a high to where it’s low right now. I think you’re seeing it, there’s not too many fights right now and again, the money isn’t flowing as it was before and it’s definitely not.
There’s certain fights that we want to see and I don’t think the money is going to be there for all of them. You’re going to see a slow down in the business, which you’re seeing right now. Boxing has always rebounded, but I would be a little concerned. I always try to be realist and straight forward with what I think and honest with myself about what I see with the people that I’m talking to. Hopefully it will rebound, hopefully it will. Right now you’ve got a big fight coming up with Ward and Kovalev, but it’s more like an insider’s fight. Those guys don’t have the exposure and the neon lights around them like Mayweather and Pacquiao. Even though they are worthy of those lights, that’s not the way it works. It’s about familiarity, it’s about the way you’re built up and the promotion that’s around you and has been around, and the PR and evertything else, and how known you are, and how taken in your are with the public and they have not come close to reaching the heights of Pacquiao and Canelo and Mayweather. I think it’s a terrific fight, I think it’s an interesting fight, I think it’s a good fight for boxing, but I still think it’s an insider’s fight. It hasn’t crossed over those lines so to speak.”
GL: Who do you like in the Kovalev-Ward fight, and why?
TA: “It’s going to be a difficult fight to pick, but I’m going to pick Ward for a lot of reasons. I guess it starts with that he knows how to win. He hasn’t lost since he was 12 years old. He’s had probably about 250 amateur fights, so it’s been a lot of fights since he’s lost. He won the Gold Medal in the Olympics and he obviously hasn’t lost as a pro. I like his character as a person and I always think that’s a strength, the strength of dependability in the ring. He’s adjustable, he can do that. Clearly he can box and counter punch, he can do that. He’s very technically sound directionally and he can turn southpaw. But he’s dependable, he’s steady and he’s not going to fall apart on himself. He’s not going to falter and let himself down when the moments come that he’s in tough positions, if he is in those positions. The one thing that worries me about him is that he’s been inactive and he’s getting older, but mostly that he’s been inactive. He is the smaller guy, the other guy is the natural light heavyweight, but I think he will find a way.
I think the style of the fight with Kovalev with bother him initially. Unlike a lot of the public that maybe thinks Kovalev is a hydrogen bomb punching that’s a seek and destroy guy, but he’s not. He was knocking out a lot of low level guys, that doesn’t mean he can’t punch. But it doesn’t mean he can punch at the level people think he can. You’re not what you’re physicality tells you you are, you’re what your temperament, what you mentality, what your core tells you you are. That’s how you fight at the end of the day and what I see with him is he’s more of a boxer. He’s got a real good trainer, a real smart trainer who pushes that level of approach, to be smart and to be a boxer. He’s a boxer, he likes to control range, he likes to control distance, he looks to set up the right hand, but he looks to set it up with a little caution, care and responsibility about it, he doesn’t just look to walk in.
I think being that he’s taller and longer, with that mentality and with that style he will give Andre some problems early on controlling range and making Andre find a way to deal with that and negotiate that distance and I think that will put a little bit of a burden on Andre, being the one who has to push the envelope for a little bit. But he’ll find a way to do it. Whether it’s to gradually walk forward, or maybe to step out and invite Kovalev to give up his height where he can get into him that way. Early on I think Kovalev will have an edge, but as the fight goes on, I think Andre will find his range and rhythm and create a way to do what he always does, which is win.”
GL: In your opinion would another Mayweather-Pacquiao fight be good or bad for boxing?
TA: “The first one turned out bad. I think we’re still feeling some of the shock effects and reverberations from it. I think we’re still feeling it to where people are not too quick to buy PPV, where they’ve been hurt, or have been burnt. Initially it was going to help the sport and it did. It brought a lot of attention and it made the sport feel relevant again, it made it feel like the biggest sport in the world again, but then when you had the result you had, it always had the potential to have the opposite effect, to make people feel bamboozled and fooled again.
It did unfortunately have that effect because of how the fight went. I just don’t know. I think we’re still suffering from the after effects of that fight and I don’t know if another dose of that it was the doctor ordered. If it does happen, I don’t think it will be as big, I don’t see how it can be that big. If some people buy it again it could be disatrous if it’s not a good fight again, but this time I wouldn’t feel bad for the boxing fans. I always care about them, but now it’s like buyer beware. You’ve been warned, so it’s buyer beware.
I don’t see it as an important fight anymore, I see it as a curiosity for people that are curious if the result could change, or Pacquiao was hurt, or for the people who want to see Mayweather again. Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but I just don’t see the demand for it. I think if anything, it’s a scary statement if that’s all we have. It’s almost like a statement if the people do buy it, because there’s other fights out there that if you gave it to them they wouldn’t have to be looking for this.
The boxing community is like a tribe walking around a desert endlessly looking for a place of salvation, and then they think they see the oasis and it becomes a mirage. That’s what I was afraid the first one would be, the boxing fans reaching for water and getting nothing but sand in their mouth. They were looking for the oasis and they’re still out there looking for it and I think they’re to the point now where they’re hoping mirages can turn into oasis’s. They’re saying maybe it will be better this time and their grasping at straws and grasping at hopes and that’s not good. If there were something solid there they wouldn’t have to grab and be wandering out there all over the damn place. There’s guys out there, whether it’s Golovkin, who maybe he could match up with Mayweather, which I don’t think is going to happen. Fights like Lomachenko and Walters, those are the fights that should be embraced.
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