Great boxing champions have great trainers behind them, forming a partnership. Joe Louis had Chappie Blackburn, Jack Dempsey had Doc Kearns, and Muhammad Ali-"The Greatest Of All Time"-had Angelo Dundee, arguably the greatest trainer in boxing history.
Also the most famous and beloved boxing trainer, Dundee coached, trained, and managed over fifteen world boxing champions in his long storied career, starting with 1950s welterweight and middleweight great Carmen Basilio from upstate New York. He also handled light heavyweight champion Willie Pastrano, heavyweight champion Jimmy Ellis, welter champ Luis Rodriguez, welterweight-middleweight great Sugar Ray Leonard, and of course, Ali. Angie, as he was affectionately called, also worked George Foreman's corner the night he knocked out Michael Moorer in the tenth round of a heavyweight championship fight and became the oldest boxer in history to win a world title-at the age of 45.
Anglo Dundee was born on Tuesday, August 30th, 1921 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-or South Philly, as he told people years later-as Angelo Mirena, the son of a railroad worker in an Italian family. His brother Joe became a pro boxer, fighting under the name Johnny Dundee in tribute to a former featherweight champion. Another brother, Chris, also adopted the surname Dundee when he became a boxing promoter. So Angelo Mirena became Angelo Dundee when he became a boxing trainer, which came early.
Angelo started learning his craft after he joined the military, like other Americans his age, in World War II. He was in the Army Air Forces, stationed in England, and working as a corner man at military boxing tournaments there. After his stint in the Army, Dundee went to the legendary Stillman's Gym near the old Madison Square Garden in New York City. He served his apprenticeship there, learning from veteran trainers like Chickie Ferrara, Ray Arcel, and Charley Goldman about being a cut man, spotting weaknesses in opponents as a boxing strategist, matching opponents to suit his fighter and to help develop and build his fighter's style and career, and how to use boxing psychology to motivate his charges. Soon afterward, Angie Dundee had his first world champion in Carmen Basilio, but many more would follow.
In the late 1950s, Dundee was in Louisville, Kentucky training world light heavyweight champion Willie Pastrano when a young boxing hopeful, a teenager named Cassius Clay approached him in the gym and asked him all kinds of questions about boxing and training, and Angelo gave him some tips he could use in his training. Several years later, they met again. This time, as the 1960 Olympic Light Heavyweight Champion, Clay was turning pro and looking for a trainer. After Cassius Clay's professional debut, Dundee became his trainer, working with him at the Fifth Street Gym in Miami Beach, Florida. They would form a fabled boxing partnership that lasted for twenty years, through a name change (Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali), three world boxing championships, Ali's exile, and a few close calls in the ring.
Dundee saw Clay's talent early, and avoided tampering with that. Instead, he honed it, using psychology to couch his boxing wisdom and advice in a way that convinced the future champion that Cassius had thought it up, not the trainer, and that's how Clay internalized Dundee's boxing knowledge, training, and strategy. Dundee also proved valuable in the ring during fights, and in building the gate for fights. When they went to England in June 1963 to fight Britain's Henry Cooper, they had already thought up a public relations strategy to build the gate for the young fighter. This had started when Cassius had gone to a Gorgeous George wrestling match, and witnessed it's buildup. From then on, Cassius and Angelo would always have a public relations strategy. Inside the squared circle, Dundee proved his mettle there, too. In the Cooper fight, Clay was knocked down at the end of the fourth round, and Angie quickly bought time for his fighter to recover by showing the referee Clay's damaged glove, asking for a new pair. The ref looked for a pair, couldn't find any, and those extra seconds allowed Clay to recover and come out in the fifth round to stop Cooper on cuts, winning the fight in the round he had predicted. And the boxing predictions were part of their strategy to build the gate on all their fights, along with poetry, much of it thought up by Dundee and and assistant trainer Drew Bundini Brown, which Cassius Clay would use to aggravate his opponents into fighting emotionally, making mistakes which Clay could take advantage of, too. When Clay fought Sonny Liston for the World Heavyweight Championship in Miami Beach on Tuesday night, February 25th, 1964, Liston came out lunging, raging mad over Clay's pre-fight antics, and could not catch the fleet footed Clay. Then between the 3rd and 4th rounds, Liston's corner put an illegal caustic resin on his gloves, which got into Clay's eyes the next round. At the end of the fourth, Clay's eyes were burning, and he wanted to quit. Angie washed his eyes out, send him out with words of encouragement and a single boxing instruction-"Run!". Clay did just that, survived the round, then beat up Liston in the sixth round. Liston quit on his stool at the start of the seventh round, and Cassius Clay became the new world heavyweight champion. The next morning, he announced he was changing his name, and a week later became Muhammad Ali. Dundee would be pivotal in later Ali fights too. He didn't stop the first Ali-Norton fight when Ali suffered a broken jaw, and he motivated Ali to continue through exhaustion after the tenth round of the third Ali-Frazier fight, also called "The Thrilla in Manila". Ali got his second wind, knocked Frazier's mouthpiece in the 13th, and closed Frazier's eyes in the 14th, forcing trainer Eddie Futch to refuse to let Joe Frazier to come out for the 15th and final round, giving Ali the victory.
Dundee would later stop Ali's fight with Larry Holmes when Ali had no energy left after the tenth round.
Throughout Ali's career, and the careers of other fighters Angelo Dundee handled, he always knew how to advise his fighters in the corner, was usually right in his boxing intuition, and became one of the greatest trainers in boxing history.
