Angelo Dundee Passes at 90

**marv2** · 02-02-2012, 11:20 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/sp...ies-at-90.html

Angelo Dundee, the renowned trainer who guided Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard to boxing glory, died on Wednesday in Clearwater, Fla. He was 90.

His death was announced by his son-in-law, James Coughlin, who said Dundee had recently been treated for blood clots.

In more than 60 years in professional boxing, Dundee gained acclaim as a brilliant cornerman, whether healing cuts, inspiring his fighters to battle on when they seemed to be reeling, or adjusting strategy between rounds to counter an opponent’s style.

“In that one minute, Angelo is Godzilla and Superman rolled into one,” Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, who often worked with Dundee and then became a TV boxing analyst, once remarked.

Ali told The New York Times in 1981: “You come back to the corner and he’ll say, ‘The guy’s open for a hook,’ or this or that. ” If he tells you something during a fight, you can believe it. As a cornerman, Angelo is the best in the world.”

When Thomas Hearns was rallying against Leonard in their welterweight championship unification fight in September 1981, Dundee got Leonard going again after the 12th round bell, telling him, “You’re blowing it, son, you’re blowing it.” Leonard knocked Hearns down in the 13th round and won the bout when the referee stopped it in the 14th.

Dundee “knew precisely how to get through to me at the most pivotal moments, and no moment in the fight, or in my career, was as pivotal as this,” Leonard recalled in his memoir “The Big Fight” [[2011),” written with Michael Arkush.

Dundee’s first champion was Carmen Basilio, the welterweight and middleweight titleholder of the 1950s from upstate New York. Although best remembered for Ali and Leonard, Dundee also trained the light-heavyweight champion Willie Pastrano, the heavyweight titleholder Jimmy Ellis and the welterweight champion Luis Rodriguez. Dundee advised George Foreman when he regained the heavyweight title at age 45. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1992.

He was born Angelo Mirena in Philadelphia, the son of a railroad worker. He became Angelo Dundee after his brother, Joe, fought professionally under the name Johnny Dundee, in tribute to a former featherweight champion; another brother, Chris, also adopted the Dundee name.

After working as a cornerman at military boxing tournaments in England while in the Army Air Forces during World War II, Dundee served an apprenticeship at Stillman’s Gym near the old Madison Square Garden, learning his craft from veteran trainers like Ray Arcel, Charley Goldman and Chickie Ferrara. In the early 1950s he teamed with his brother Chris to open the Fifth Street gym in Miami Beach. It became their longtime base, Angelo as a trainer and Chris as a promoter.

In the late 1950s, Dundee gave some tips to a promising amateur named Cassius Clay, and in December 1960, after Clay’s first pro bout, Dundee became his trainer, working with him in Miami Beach. He guided him to the heavyweight title with a knockout of Sonny Liston in February 1964.

Dundee avoided the temptation to tamper with the brilliance of his young and charismatic fighter, and he used a bit of psychology in honing his talents.

“I never touched that natural stuff with him,” Dundee recalled in his memoir, “My View From the Corner” [[2008), written with Bert Randolph Sugar. He added: “So every now and then I’d subtly suggest some move or other to him, couching it as if it were something he was already doing. I’d say something like: ‘You’re getting that jab down real good. You’re bending your knees now and you’re putting a lot of snap into it.’ Now, he had never thrown a jab, but it was a way of letting him think it was his idea, his innovation.”

When Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali soon after winning the heavyweight title, his boxing management and financial affairs were handled by the Nation of Islam. Dundee was the only white man in his camp, and he grew disturbed over references to that fact.

In his memoir, Dundee said that he and Ali “had this special thing, a unique blend, a chemistry.”

“I never heard anything resembling a racist comment leave his mouth,” he said. “There was never a black-white divide.”

Dundee knew all the tricks in the boxing trade, and then some