Trading with Gennady Golovkin Trainer Abel Sanchez

Gennady Golovkin photo via Golden Boy Promotions

by Sarah Deming

I really appreciate the time; I know it’s getting down to the wire. How’s Gennady feeling today?

Very good. We’ve had a great training camp. Everything has gone according to plan. He came ahead of time, in shape, so it’s been easy.

What’s his weight right now?

Probably 168, 169 before training. He’s usually about ten pounds above the weight at this time. So hopefully by the public workout on Monday he’ll be 165.

He seems like the kind of fighter who stays in shape all the time.

Yeah, you know, he’s had so many fights. He’s been on the international scene for so long that he understands his responsibilities and it makes it easier on us. When a fighter does that and takes care of himself it’s easier on him. When he gets older it won’t be such a dramatic change. So I’m sure he looks at all aspects of it.

You’ve spoken a lot about the changes that you’ve made to Gennady’s style on a technical level. Do you think you added at all to his psychological game?

I think that, coming out of my gym, the kind of system that we have, the kind of work that we do, it’s very difficult. There’s very few guys that have come up and been able to handle it. So we do a lot of stuff that mentally prepares you for the grind of a difficult 12-round fight. Sometimes you don’t need it, but we work them extremely hard. We take them, some people like to call it like a military camp, where we take them right to the edge, bring them back down, and then take them to the edge again and just continue. That’s why I always say it takes three or four fights before a guy can get used to my system because it does grow on you and you learn how to push yourself past those boundaries.

I know you’ve had some fighters in the past whose work ethic wasn’t up to your standards.

Well, not so much my standards, but when you have a group of ten or twelve fighters working hard in the gym and two of them are slacking off, I think it’s bad for the other eight. It’s not representing them and representing the gym. And why am I allowing that? Because we are a family in my gym. We don’t allow very many people in there. And they eat together, they sleep together, they watch TV together. So they’re always together in my house. And when some of them aren’t doing their part, I need to make sure it doesn’t affect the others.

Fighters peak before a big fight. Do you think coaches peak, too?

For me, I don’t think so. I think that I have so many other fighters that are scheduled. Like I have the IBF champion Murat Gassiev fighting in October. I have another guy fighting on the 9th at the Stub Hub. I have another guy fighting on the 16th underneath Golovkin. So we’re in constant evolution because when one guy’s peaking the other guy’s getting prepared, so for me to get to the point where I’m just looking at one fight, that’s not fair to the rest of them.

But is it ever hard with one thoroughbred like Gennady? Does that ever make the other fighters jealous? Is it hard to have enough attention for everyone?

No I think it’s easier because he sets the tone. All these guys want to be where he’s at. All these guys want to perform like him. All these guys want to emulate him. We’ve had guys running exactly like he runs. We’ve had guys looking at themselves in the mirror and practicing their punches like he does. So it makes it easier for a coach because you’ve got a guy in there who’s a leader. Really, a guy who doesn’t say that much, but a leader in the sense that everybody’s watching him. And at my gym we have 11:00, 1:00, 3:00, and 5:00 times, so everybody gets their moment. So it’s not like I’m spending it all on one guy. Gennady trains at 3, Gassiev trains at 5, and some of the other guys train earlier, but when Golovkin trains, some of the other fighters will come down and watch him train.

Are you personally there straight through the day?

I’m there at 15 minutes to six when they start running.

Wow. And do you run, too?

(laughing) No, I run spiritually. I follow in my Suburban. I’m with them in spirit.

So you must wake up pretty early then?

About 15 minutes to five. I drive to the gym. I live about two miles from the gym, so I’m there about 15 minutes to six. I start watching my news. At 6, the guys start coming down, they stretch a little bit, at 6:15 they take off on the run. The morning run is usually about 55 minutes to an hour, depending on how much I want them to run that day. Then they stretch for a while, they do their sit-ups. They stretch again and they go up to eat. It’s usually about a two or 2 1/2 hour workout in the morning and another two to 2 1/2 hours in the evening.

Who cooks the food out there?

They cook for themselves. I’ve always believed that they’re grown men and I have so many different nationalities and so many different ethnic groups that it’s impossible to have a chef for everybody. So they teach each other how to do their national foods and we go shopping maybe twice a week at the markets here — we have two different markets — they bring their food and they cook for themselves. They all share in the cooking. They all share in the cleaning. And I think it makes for cohesiveness too in the gym.

That’s beautiful. This fight coming up against Canelo: it’s the biggest in Gennady’s career, right? That’s not debatable, is it?

I would say the biggest as far as the notoriety of the opponent. But I don’t think it’s the most dangerous opponent. I think we’ve had several other that have been more dangerous and just as accomplished. But, yeah, he is the most known because he’s got, a lot of Mexico is behind him. He’s got a country behind him, so, because of that, he’s the biggest.

Who would you have considered the most dangerous opponent of Gennady’s career?

I think, as a coach — and maybe Golovkin wouldn’t agree — but, as a coach, I thought Stevens was one of our more dangerous opponents. And I think Danny Jacobs, because of his size, was difficult to prepare for, considering how many tactics, how many plans we had to set up for his attack.

I’m from Brooklyn, and Danny Jacobs is beloved in our gyms. I thought that was a beautiful performance.

Oh, that’s the second best middleweight in the world. By far.

Is there any other match that the GGG-Canelo fight reminds you of? Any of the title bouts you’ve gone through?

Not any of the fights that I’ve gone through, but it reminds me of Hagler-Leonard. It reminds me of those days in the mid-80, mid-90s, when the five kings, as people called them, were active and they were fighting each other and a loss didn’t mean nothing. I think those are the kind of fights that we have to go back to. But unfortunately the networks today want undefeated records, and sometimes those are not the best fighters. Sometimes the best fighters are the ones who’ve experienced defeat and come back stronger. Terry Norris had three losses before we won the title and he’s in the Hall of Fame.

I think this fight reminds me of the Hagler-Leonard fight where there was the matador and the bull. And we’re gonna see some wrinkles– I sometimes say that Golovkin is like an onion, where there’s so many layers to him that he’s only shown us a couple, and if we get the inside fight that hopefully Canelo will bring, we’re going to be treated to a great fight.

So in the Hagler-Leonard analogy, Gennady is Hagler?

Gennady is the stalker, like Hagler was. The matador was trying to keep Hagler off. I thought Hagler won that fight, but that’s irrelevant. The judges saw it for Leonard, but Leonard was the darling. In this particular fight, if you watch any of Gennady’s fights, he’s gonna be coming forward. He’s gonna make a fight of it. Canelo doesn’t move, he doesn’t have the legs that Leonard did, he doesn’t have the mobility. But if Canelo even decides to stand in front of Gennady, like I said, we’re going to be treated to a, maybe a Hagler-Mugabi fight, where they went at each other.

You and Gennady have a unique bond. Do you see yourself in him at all?

You know, when his father died, a little over three years ago, I think i took on a different role, not verbally, not with it being said, but I think I took on more of an elder role with him. And he listens– but he’s never not listened, he’s never not been the dedicated pupil, but I think now we have a different relationship because of his father dying.

But I see myself in him, sometimes, in some of the things he says. When he’ll talk, he’ll repeat some of the things that I’ve said, and I think that we think alike. I think he understands the American market, now that we talk about it, and he understands what it is that we need to do to sell to make sure that those people who work very hard for their money get their money’s worth. And I hear him sometimes saying things that I’ve said in the past. He’s trying to believe what I’ve told him about the American market.

It strikes me that you’re great at both ends of training: the technical work in the gym but also the salesmanship. And those are two extremely different skills.

Well, there are a couple fighters that are fighting actively right now, I’ll say three fighters that are exceptional. They are probably the best technical fighters there is. And I’m talking about Lara, Rigondeaux, and Andre Ward. But I don’t think their coaches, back two, three years ago, explained to them, that in order for me to sell you — yeah, you’re a great fighter — but in order for me to sell you to the general public, you have to do this, this, and this. And if you don’t do this, this, and this, we’re not gonna be able to sell you.

And what are we doing this for? We’re doing this to entertain. We’re not doing this just to be called…some people call it “the sweet science.” People don’t care about the sweet science. People paid their money to see this fight. They want to see them fight. They don’t want to see two guys dancing.

So I make sure from the beginning, and if you look at any of the fighters that I have, my fighters come to fight. Go back to Terry Norris. Terry Norris came to fight. He came to beat you up. If we lost, we lost, but he came to beat you up and the people got their money’s worth. I’ve instilled that mentality on Golovkin and the other guys follow suit because they’re with Golovkin. You know, Gassiev, my IBF cruiserweight champion, he’s cut from the same mold. He comes to fight. He’s gonna hurt you.

So, if I’m a coach that’s looking to, not only make champions, but, obviously, we all do this for the money, to make money. I’m looking at building something, not a perfect fighter, but a fighter who’s gonna be entertaining.

Terry Norris for sure came to beat you up, but his brother was more of a cutie.

The unfortunate thing for his brother is he couldn’t, he really didn’t have a punch, and I couldn’t develop that punch at that weight because those guys were just so much bigger. But, if you look at his fights, they were 12-round fights, but he came to fight. He just, he had better defense than Terry. He was a lot smarter than Terry. But we just could not develop that punching power like I had hoped. But as a cruiserweight he was very dominant. And as a heavyweight, he was dominant up to a certain point.

Do you ever worry about training boxers who have an engaging, come-to-fight style, and then you look at the lingering effects on somebody like Terry Norris. Do you give much thought to that?

Of course. We have to. Because you, as a coach, you have to understand that these people are your friends. You’re gonna be talking to them ten, fifteen years from now. But in Terry’s case, let me tell you, when I left after the Simon Brown fight that got called off in September of ’92, when I stopped training him, Terry started training Terry. And I remember getting calls from some of the other fighters telling me, “Coach, he’s sparring 15, 16 rounds every day after partying the night before.” So that’s what did it to Terry, it wasn’t the fights.

We as coaches have to manage what we do in the gyms. I think a lot of coaches, and it’s been something that’s always been done, guys get in the gym with the plastics on and they wanna spar 150 rounds and lose weight to get in shape for a fight. It’s not right. Because if they spar — even if they spar 120 rounds for a fight — that’s twelve, ten-round fights. So add up how many training camps, these guys have a thousand fights on their record, when you look at it that way, so I think it’s important that we as coaches are not as, I don’t want to say gullible, but are not as lenient as we’ve been in the past when we allow guys to put the plastics on and spar ten rounds. They lose weight today, yeah, but then they go back to the house and they put it all back on.

Back in the old days, and I’m talking about the ’70s and ’60s, when they were fighting six or seven times a year, they didn’t have the period of time in between fights when they would blow up, and they didn’t spar as much then. They fought so often, so they couldn’t spar as much. The sparring was the fight. And if you talk to some of these guys from back then, they talk just like you and I, so can it be the damage that we’re causing in the gym? I believe so.

You’re known for not sparring your guys as much. What do you spar, two days a week?

We spar three days a week. Gennady won’t spar more than 75 rounds for this fight. But at that point, he’s already in shape. He’s sparring in a tee-shirt. He’s not trying to lose weight and get in shape at the same time.

In that Ring Magazine “Best I’ve Faced,” you said something about Jesus Salud, that he had sereneness in the ring. And you said Gennady did as well. Can you talk more about that?

I’ve had three fighters in my career that were very smart inside the ring but also always had this calmness about them when they step through the ropes. They know what their job is, they know what they need to do. And Jesus was one of them. Orlin Norris was another, and Gennady Golovkin is another. But I think it’s because of experience, personality. I think Gennady’s amateur experience was very important. Orlin Norris had about 300 amateur fights. Jesus’s upbringing was, I think, very important. Just, there’s no worry. They’re there to do a job, and they’re in shape, and they know what they need to do, and there’s no animosity. If you listen to Jesus talk, if you listen to Orlin talk, if you listen to Gennady: they’re all gentlemen, very supportive, never insulting anybody. They’re sure of who they are, and I think that’s very important.

Where do you think that serenity comes from in Gennady’s case?

I think his upbringing. Great parenting, I should say, and a great Kazakh system, and if you watch any of the amateur tournaments, the Kazakh team always seems to have people on top. That, and the fact that he has 350 amateur fights. He’s been in every situation that you could ever put him in. He’s fought short guys, fat guys, ugly guys, tall guys. He’s fought everybody, so nobody’s gonna faze him.

You’ve trained sixteen world titleholders at this point?

Murat Gassiev makes seventeen.

If you don’t mind, I’d just like to check some of this background info I got off the Web. You were born in Tijuana in 1955?

Yes, ma’am.

Were there any boxers in your family?

No, ma’am.

It said that you came to this country when you were six?

Yes, my mother immigrated us when I was six years old.

And how many of you were there at that point? It was your mom, you, and…

Four kids. I’m the oldest of four.

And do you remember what that was like? Coming to a new country at six?

Well, my mom moved here first and was working here, and she met a man named Ben Sanchez, who is the only father that I’ve ever known. He was born in Denver, Colorado. He was eleven years older than my mother. And he adopted us. He was a general contractor.

And they had more kids together?

They had three more kids together, yes. And adopted one.

Who was the one they adopted?

David. David Sanchez.

Can you tell me the story of how that happened?

Well, how can I put this, my dad was 11 years older than my mom, so he’d had some relationships. And he had a relationship with a woman that had a son. And that son, when he grew up, had a boy and a girl, David being the boy. And at about ten or eleven years old, my father felt that — he still had a relationship with this, with David’s father, because he had raised him for about three or four years, so at about ten or eleven years old, my father felt that David wasn’t being raised right or treated right, so he told the father that David was going to stay with us, stay at our house.

What a beautiful man your dad sounds like.

Absolutely.

Are they still living, your parents?

No, ma’am, my father died in 1979. My mother still lives. She’s 79. She’ll be 80 on October 1.

Are you going to have a big party?

Yeah. A big party. Eighty years old.

What are you going to do?

I don’t know yet. (laughing) I gotta worry about the 16th first.

I feel you. What was your mom doing for work when she met your dad?

My mother was a housekeeper.

And where was this?

Well, I grew up in Southern California. We lived in West Covina. We lived in the City of Industry. For a couple of years, about three years, my father was a building contractor who developed land. So we moved all St. Inez. My father developed 40 acres in St. Inez. He built four barns and a couple of houses, back in ’69-’70, so he was a builder and that’s how I learned the trade and became a builder myself. At 18 years old, I was a general contractor.

Was he strict with you?

My father served close to 11 years in the Army, so yes he was very strict. He was very military.

Was that ever hard for you, the discipline?

You know, I was young and my brothers and sisters were young, too. I think it was harder on my father’s relatives, my father’s sisters and brothers, because my father was very strict. My father demanded things. We were ten years old, learning a trade, learning how to work in the summers. But I think that prepared us for the future.

I think that nowadays there’s really no preparation for these young men or women for the future. There’s a lot of people that think they have a right to be here instead of a privilege to be here in this great country. Born here or not born here, my father believed that you had to pull your own weight, and he worked us.

But I’m thankful because at 22 years old, I don’t know if you know the movie ET but i was one of the contractors. I was the framing and concrete contractor that did those houses for a general. And I would not have been able to do that at 22 years old had I not been groomed and taught to be responsible.

I love that you built the houses for ET! I feel there’s a parallel to boxing, in terms of building something with solid fundamentals but that’s ultimately for entertainment.

It’s the foundation that’s so crucial in the upbringing of a child, the building of a house, the upbringing of a fighter, from four rounds to eight rounds, all that. All that has its relationships. But also, for me, though, having employees, I think helped me with the boxing, because it showed me how to deal with relationships, how to deal with guys, how to deal with men. You can talk to a certain employee one way, but you can’t talk to the other one that way because of whatever, their age, their beliefs. And it’s kind of the same thing in boxing. You have to learn how to manage men. As a coach, you’re a father, you’re a teacher, you’re a priest, you’re a doctor, you’re everything.

I have contractors in my family and I know that often one of the challenges is collecting from clients. Was that ever a problem for you?

No, I’ve never had any issues like that. I’ve had a blessed life. Even in boxing. I think that when you do the work that you’re supposed to do, when you’re consistent in your thoughts and in your actions, I’ve never had those issues. I’ve always had to turn work down. In fact, just this morning, we had two messages, one from Australia and one from Canada, and they’ve been bugging me for years about sending some fighters over here and having me train them, on whatever terms I want. But I don’t have the room and I don’t have the time. But it’s always been that way, fortunately. I’ve been blessed.

When you were a kid, did you ever get into fights?

Well, I remember at 11 or 12, my father setting up a semi-ring in the front yard and all the neighborhood kids coming over and lacing gloves on and just trying each other out, weight-wise. But, high school, I don’t think I got into fights on purpose. I did get into fights obviously like every boy does but I was more of a football jock. I played football, baseball, and basketball in high school, so I never really got into those kind of issues.

Were you a good student, too? Were you into books and classes?

Oh, my father insisted on that. I graduated with a B+ average. My brother right below me had an A- average. My father insisted on that. It didn’t matter what chores you had, what work you had, your grades had to be up.

You said he was from Denver. Was he of Mexican-American heritage, too?

Yes, his father was from El Paso, Texas. And his mother was from Juarez, Mexico.

And you started your own company at 18? What was it called?

Yes, right after high school I was a licensed contractor. It was just called Abel Sanchez Construction.

And you have three kids? How old are they?

My daughter is 45. My son is 40. And my youngest son is 35.

So you were pretty young when you started having kids, like 18 or so?

Yes, well, my daughter is not my actual biological child; she was four years old when I married her mother. And my middle son was from a relationship that I had. So it was hers, mines, and ours, I guess you could say. (laughing). My son was about eight months old when I met my first wife, and then we had a son together.

What are the kids up to now? Are they all in Cali?

My daughter runs an escrow company in Pasedena. My middle son works for the Mayo clinic. He’s a big, he’s got a Master’s degree in pathology or something, he travels all over the world, setting up research in third world countries, and my youngest son is just finishing up his accounting degree. He’s working as a bartender right now.

Did you ever want any of the kids to go into boxing?

Well, the little one did. No, I didn’t want them to go into it, but the little one did. They were down with me in San Diego when I had Terry Norris. And the little one was gonna fight on Saturday, and unfortunately he told me on Tuesday that he had a little pain in his leg and he had a hernia. So, lucky for me, he ended up not fighting on that Saturday, and he went back home for the summer and fortunately, next summer he wasn’t as interested, because I really didn’t want him to go into it.

Why not?

It’s a difficult sport. Like I said, I’ve had a blessed life, so they’ve done well. And I don’t think that somebody that has options is going to be good at this sport. It’s a sport that requires 100% dedication and discipline, and if you have an option, you have these thoughts that maybe I don’t need to be doing this.

Yeah, I coach at a free community gym, and sometimes I think the kids who are the best boxers are the ones with the worst families.

They have a reason. They want to get out of wherever they’re at. The ones that have options, they say, “Oh, that’s ok. I don’t need to do this. I’ll go back to school. I’ll go back home and Dad’s gonna give me some money and buy me a car.” So they don’t give you the discipline and dedication that is required for this sport. As Gennady puts it, “This is a serious business.”

I know you kickboxed a little bit and then you switched to boxing. Is that why you didn’t pursue fighting seriously? Because you had too many options?

Absolutely. At 18 and 19 years old, when I first started kickboxing, I had a business I was running. And it was impossible to do both. One was an amateur thing, and one was a business that was making money, and you have to make a choice, because you’ve gotta eat. Or your family has to eat.

In the course of your life, have you made more money through boxing or through construction?

Now, boxing. Before, construction. Even when I was with Terry. Because with Terry, I probably didn’t make a million dollars with Terry, but I’ve done real well with construction. Of course, boxing is a lot easier, and you get to travel and you get to meet a lot of nice people and it’s like a close family that takes care of itself. While in construction, you seldom go out of your town. You’re working eight days a week, trying to make ends meet. In boxing you get to travel all over the world. And now, obviously, with Gennady it’s going a lot better.

Did that surprise you, how it worked out? That Gennady turned up at this point in your career?

Well, in 2007 my youngest son was living with me and we decided, I’d already finished the building and my kids were using it as a resort house, because it’s only a quarter mile from the ski resorts. And, from 2006, I think, I had the lights, the electricity, the cable on all the time so they could use it, and I decided I was going to sell it.

But I told my son, “Let’s build a gym first, until it sells, and just let our friends use it.” You know, other fighters, people I knew, managers. So we finished the gym in 2008 and Oscar De la Hoya was the first one to use it, actually, for his fight against Manny Pacquiao. He used the gym and he used one of my houses. I have two houses on my property.

And then, because of 24/7 and because of word of mouth, people started finding out that I had a gym and they started wanting to use it, and before I knew it I had three or four different fighters myself that I really didn’t wanna train, because I have a business to run.

In 2008, when the economy hit the skids, I had to make a choice. Because I had these houses in Big Bear that I was building for 300K and I couldn’t sell them for 250. The economy being as bad as it was, I had to make a choice to get out of construction, and I haven’t built nothing since 2008.

It started, training the fighters and trying to run the gym, and then in April 2010 is when Golovkin’s managers called me and asked to meet me.

The management team has done a tremendous job with him.

I think all the pieces have fallen into place for all of us. Not only Golovkin coming up to meet me but also Tom Loeffler coming on board in the management team. But the bottom line is, Golovkin has done his part. We can be great at what we do, but if people don’t want to see this kid fight, because he doesn’t knock nobody out, it doesn’t matter what we do outside. He, inside the ring, has done his job. His personality is perfect. So it’s like the perfect storm. Everything came together at the right time.

How did you learn to coach? Who taught you to train fighters?

I think that construction prepared me for it, because you’re actually coaching when you’re doing construction. I have probably 25 carpenters that I taught from nothing. They were just kids that came to work for me that I developed in four or five years of working with me.

But, more than anything, I like to watch. I remember watching Emmanuel Steward in the early ’80s on TV in a corner, and i said to myself, “That’s exactly how I want to be in the corner. That’s exactly how I want to coach.”

What was it about Emmanuel Steward that you admired?

I like the sereneness. I like the fact that he’s telling you exactly what you need to do. He’s telling you why you needed to do it, and he’s being stern at the right moment, and he’s not being stern at the right moment. I think his experience prior to the time when I saw him was very important. He had fighters in ’73, ’74. He had champions in ’77, ’78. So all that way of being just was eye-opening for me.

And also I like to look at fighters. I watched a lot of videos. Back then would record everything and I had a collection of videos and I would go over everything and watch what those fighters did.

I wanted to form a way that I wanted to train. Alexis Arguello is my favorite fighter.

Oh, I love him!

His left hand was, if you look at any of my fighters, they all use the left hand with hooks and uppercuts and body shots and then they kill with the right hand. Terry Norris was that way. And that was because of Alexis Arguello and because of the way he used his left hand. So you mold your style to what you like. And the fact that my father was a military man instilled in me that you have to have a system, you have to have a way of being, and stick with it. And it may work sometimes and it may not work sometimes, but if you stick with it long enough, it’s gonna work.

Wasn’t your first title fight against Emmanuel Steward?

Yeah, Lupe fought Duane Thomas in Bordeaux, France. That was my first champion, yes. We ended up being 5–3, me and Emmanuel. I had five wins and he had three.

So what was that like, going down to France for your first title fight, and in the opposite corner is this man you respect so much?

I was more… scared, I guess you could call it, of Emmanuel than I was of his fighter. You know, just being out-thought in the corner, being out-coached in the corner. But I had a kid that was at the right moment, was just ready to fight, and I think we beat, we dropped him once or twice, and we beat him in a decision. But it was exciting for me to go against a guy who I thought was the premier coach in the world. And I wasn’t boasting after, I wasn’t doing any of that. I wanted to do more against him, because if I was doing more against him, that would make me — not on his level — but at least climbing the ladder.

If you look at some of my shirts on the logo, if you look right above the heart, there’s an ES, surrounded by red with this yellow on the inside, and that stands for Emmanuel Steward, when he died I put that on my logo.

So did you two develop a friendship over the years?

Yes, we spent a lot of time together. I spent a lot of time at his house. We coached a couple fighters together, and he was the type of coach that would sit with you and talk to you about his boxing experiences, and I loved to hear him talk about some of the issues he had with his fighters. And that has put in the back of my mind the things that I have to avoid. Some of the things I do today are the direct result of some of the stories he told me.

Can you give me an example of some advice that Emmanuel gave you?

Well, first of all, if you look at any of my fighters, we never walk in with an entourage. We never have any people in the gym. I’m the only coach in the gym. We don’t have hangers on. We don’t have anybody that’s wiping somebody’s brow. I remember Emmanuel telling me about a situation with Tommy Hearns when he was fighting Ray Leonard the first time. He came to his room and he had these guys massaging his legs. And Emmanuel said that was why he didn’t have any legs later on in the fight. All these things that you prepared for ten weeks for the fight, and then later on, these hangers on are doing things that they shouldn’t to your fighter.

You’re the one who’s going to pay. You as the coach are going to take the loss, not only the financial loss but the career loss, but you’re also going to take the blame, so, as Emmanuel said to me one day, “If it’s gonna be my fault, I want it to be my fault.”

That makes sense. To control everything you can.

Control everything you can. Control all the situations. And he used to say, “You’re gonna be the bad guy, and he’s not gonna give you a dime after everything’s through, but he’s gonna send you a check.”

To play devil’s advocate, sometimes an entourage can relax a fighter. Like, having a clown around to diffuse things.

Not in my camp. This is a serious business. One punch, not only can change a fight, but can change your life. My life, too, because I have to live with that.

You spoke about foundations, and the fighters that you’re most famous for working with came to you after they were pros, after they had a style. How much of a fighter’s style can be changed after it’s set? Do you ever worry about changing too much?

No, I try not to change the style. What I like to do is give them options. In other words, you come to me in a certain way, you come to me with 1,2,3, and 4 and I’m gonna teach you 5,6,7, and 8. And you decide. You decide at the particular moment. I don’t think fighters should be robots. I think that they need to have all the tools at their disposal to do what they need to do at a particular time.

Like, Terry Norris was a great boxer, but I made him a stalker. I made him a guy that just came to kill you. So I try not to change them. What I try to do is add to them, and then I tell them, if you feel that your way is best suited, then use your way. I tell them truthfully, “I have to assume that you’re an intelligent person.”

I’m a big advocate of strength and conditioning. And not the modern strength and conditioning, but strength and conditioning to benefit the fighter. Not a basketball player, not a football player. All my fighters are very strong. They all come in on weight. And I tell them, “You’re gonna see. You’re gonna go, in the fourth or fifth round, ‘Hey, Coach, you’re right! This is fun!’” I explain to them that, to me, conditioning is not being able to go 12 rounds. To me, conditioning is being able to do the same thing in the 12th round that you could in the first, with the same speed, with the same snap, with the same power.

Do you have a strength coach you work with?

Me. When I first started doing this, there was no money to hire anybody so I worked my own cuts, I wrap my own hands, I do my own strength and conditioning, everything is done by me. Not that I’m greedy or selfish, but I think nobody is willing to work as hard as me at perfection. And when I say perfection, I say it because it’s proven at this point that it’s working.

How did you develop your approach to strength and conditioning?

You know, Roger Mayweather says something and I think people don’t listen to it enough, and I think he doesn’t listen to it enough. He said, “The fighters of yesterday are better than the fighters of today.” So why are we not emulating the fighters of yesterday? Why are we not training like the fighters of yesterday? Why are we not doing the things the fighters of yesterday used to do to get better?

So, what I’ve done, is I research some of the things the fighters of the past used to do, and everything is on the Internet. And Manny had a very famous saying he used around me a lot. He used to say, “You have to do the KISS method. Keep it simple stupid.” And that’s so true. He didn’t believe in conditioning coaches. He didn’t believe in nutritionists, and I don’t either, because, to this day, there has not been one kid who has started at fifteen and sixteen years old and grown up into a great, great fighter because of their system.

Now, they all want to come in at the end. Like when Ariza came into Manny Pacquiao’s camp after the Diaz fight and all of a sudden Manny wins and Ariza says he’s making him stronger, he’s making him punch harder. No, it’s technique that makes you punch harder. To this day, I have not seen a conditioning coach that’s improved a fighter that dramatically to tell me that his system is perfect. They all want to take the credit for it, but it’s the fighter that’s doing it.

Some of the great trainers never boxed themselves. Do you think it’s necessary for a coach to have boxed?

I think what’s necessary is for you to study up. I think it’s necessary to have an open mind, to recognize right and wrong and also in the middle somewhere. I think when you’re a great fighter, as Joe Frazier was, as Roy Jones was, and you try to be a coach, I think you’re trying to build something on what you know, on what you used to do. And that is so hard, because not everybody is going to have the quality of a Roy Jones. There’s never gonna be a hooker like Joe Frazier that jumps off his feet and can land that great shot. And for them to be coaches, I think they try to build something in their image, because that’s what they know. And sometimes the expectations are too high and you don’t get the value of the fighter because you’re trying to mold him too high. I think if you have the knowledge of the game, and even if you have boxed as an amateur or at least been in the ring, you kind of have the idea that there’s a lot of different ways to do it, and let’s see what works.

There’s thousands of different ways to do this. If you’re lucky enough to gel and if you’re lucky enough to get that chemistry between two people, between a coach and a fighter, sometimes the worst coach with the best fighter can be a great combination, or the other way around. It’s the desire of those two people to do something great. Not necessarily because they’re both–Emmanuel Steward and Oscar De la Hoya were never going to make it. Because they’re both geniuses and they both had big egos and they weren’t going to be able to work together as coach and fighter.

Is there a moment in the corner that you particularly remember where you really made a difference? Like that famous Angelo Dundee moment when he pushed Ali into the ring? Is there some private memory you have like that?

Well, not for me so much. I think that I’ve always wanted to train fighters with character, with morals, fighters that were men, not braggadocios, not divas. I always wanted to train fighters that were respectful, people who stuck with themselves, who stuck with their families.

And I think of a moment in the Terry Norris-Ray Leonard fight between the 8th and the 9th round. I said to Terry, he comes back to the corner and he sits down, and I said, “OK, T. Time to knock this guy out.”

And he said to me, “No, he is my idol. He’s going twelve.”

Wow.

That’s probably been the most satisfying moment, I guess. This is a sport. We’re not trying to kill each other. It’s a sport like chess, where you have to out-think somebody, you have to out-move somebody. So that struck a chord. It’s about winning but it’s also about remembering. Remembering why you are here. You are here because you looked up to somebody.

But you’ve also often said in the past, “Why go twelve when you can end it sooner?”

Oh absolutely, to take the judges out of the equation. But to have a young man in the middle of what was the most important fight of his career, to have him have the presence of mind to be able to say that. That’s what I call character. Wow.

That’s a great story. I watched that fight online, but they cut to commercial on the round breaks, so I couldn’t hear you. But what a beautiful performance by Terry. And that’s so cool to hear that Arguello is your favorite fighter.

There you go with character again with Arguello. He was a gentleman inside the ring and a gentleman outside. I think that’s been more important to me, in my career, to train somebody that I don’t mind calling him my son, I don’t mind calling him my fighter, I’m not embarrassed by anything they do.

But, and I’m sorry to bring this up, but how do you feel when something happens like the Lupe car accident?

Well, the unfortunate thing about these young men is that they came from most of them, they come from poverty, they come from nothing. But, once they start making money, the friends who come along with it are friends that maybe have money. And they start doing things that aren’t only bad for their career but bad for their lives. The drinking, the cars, the women. And everything related to having all of a sudden a pocketful of money. I’m sad that he was involved in that. I feel sorry for the families. But sometimes notoriety and success, some people can’t handle it.

What is the biggest change you’ve seen in boxing during your life?

The entertainment aspect of it. There’s been some fighters — and no need to mention names — but some fighters who’ve coined the term “the sweet science” and then have, have really not followed what the sweet science was when Ray Robinson, when Willie Pep, when Joe Louis, Marciano was fighting, even up to Larry Holmes. Those were fighters. They had skills. They did their job inside the ring.

Today sometimes you watch a fight and you have ten or fifteen opportunities where they’ll be holding each other. It’s more of a wrestling match. I don’t know if it’s coming from MMA or UFC or what, but these guys are wrestling each other. They don’t have their hands free. I can understand why Roger Mayweather said that the fighters of yesterday were better, and if you watch Floyd Mayweather, whether you like his style or dislike his style, Floyd doesn’t clinch. Floyd is in the pocket, and Floyd’s got his hands ready to hit you. And that’s from the old style. That’s how they used to fight. And I think that’s the change that I’ve seen that I don’t particularly like. Golovkin doesn’t clinch. Golovkin wants to fight.

Has there ever been a time when you feel like you made a mistake as a coach?

Many. Many, as a young coach, and all coaches, I think, we ruin careers, because we’re learning our craft and we’ve done things that maybe were not in the best interest of our fighters but we’re trying to make perfection, but to make perfection you’ve gotta make mistakes.

I can’t put my finger on any particular moment but I think that we’ve all made mistakes. I think, if you want to go back to when I was with Terry, I think that maybe agreeing to take the Julian Jackson fight that early in Terry’s career was a mistake, but he was beating the heck out of Julian in the first round until he did just what I asked him not to do and that’s sit on the ropes, so it could’ve been a different ending if he had not sat on the ropes.

There was a young man I trained also, his name was Paul Vaden, he ended up being a champion, who, early in his career the management came to me and offered a fight that was Joe Lipsey. And Joe Lipsey at the time was 22–0 or 23–0 and a middleweight and my kid was a junior middleweight and I turned that down. If I’d taken that and we’d got beat, I would’ve said that was one of the mistakes. Sometimes you succumb to pressure, peer pressure, and you make decisions that are not necessarily in the best interest.

When Paul and Terry fought, you were no longer involved with either fighter, right?

No, I left Terry’s corner in ’92 and I left Paul’s in ’94.

Tell me about leaving Terry.

What happened was, in September ’92 I was training Terry for the Simon Brown fight and it got called off. Simon Brown went to the hospital and he had a heart murmur. We didn’t find out until 5:30 on a Saturday right before the 7:00 HBO show. We were in Terry’s hotel room with security outside his room, ready to walk us down. And I get a call from the manager saying, “Don’t walk down yet, there’s a problem.” I said, “What’s the problem?” He said, “Call ten minutes later.” And I called ten minutes later and he said, “The fight is off.”

So we didn’t fight on HBO. I don’t know what HBO did, but that fight got called off. A month later I was called into the manager’s office and at the time I was managing and training Orlin, I was training Jesus, I had Paul Vaden. I had like five or six top-rated guys, top five. And the manager hands me a letter, signed by him and Terry, two simple lines. It said that if I wanted to continue training Terry Norris, I would have to take a 50% cut in pay, and I couldn’t train nobody else.

Because they were claiming that he was worried about Paul as competition?

Paul had ten or eleven fights! It was a totally different level. Terry, when he was training with me, he was like Gennady, top pound for pound. So, for this kid who had ten or eleven fights to get to a point where he was a scary person for Terry, that would be two or three years down the road. And, if they ever did fight, if they were one and two pound for pound, imagine the kind of money we could make!

I think it was all, from an article that came out in the Union down in San Diego, Orlin Sr. made a comment just saying that the manager wanted more control of Terry’s career and Abel wasn’t willing to give it to him. The sad thing abut this boxing business is that the person that has the most control over the future or demise of a fighter is the coach. Whether you win or lose is up to the coach. But he is the only one who’s not protected by a contract at all. The manager has a contract. The promoter has a contract. The network has a contract.

So I said no. Not because of the financial part of it, that they were cutting my pay, even though they thought that was why I wasn’t going to do it. The reason was because I had a moral commitment to my other fighters. They depended on me.

They wanted you to leave Orlin, too?

Yes to be exclusive to Terry. Because Orlin was no longer with that management group. I had been managing and training Orlin for about two years. And they wanted me to leave them. I said, “I can’t do that. I can’t let those kids down.”

And that manager was Joe…

Joe Sayatovich, yeah.

He managed Lupe Acquino, too, right? I remember reading that you kind of mended the fences between Joe and Lupe.

Yeah, well, what happened was, Lupe was managed and trained by my amateur trainer Ben Lira, who is now my assistant in the corner — a little short man who looks like Mr. Miagi? — Anyway, he actually had Lupe since he was 17 years old. When Lupe got to be about 21, for some reason they had a falling out and went to arbitration, and Lupe was released from his contract to Ben. Ben was bought out of his contract by a group called First Fighter Squadron in San Diego. It was four businessmen that were partners in this business, and Joe Sayatovich was the acting partner I guess you could call him.

So Lupe went down there to train, and he trained with the trainer that they had down there, a man whose name was Wes Wambold, who at the time was also training James Kinchen, and for some reason Lupe and Wes didn’t get along. I don’t know what that reason was. But Lupe fought with them for three fights and then he decided he didn’t want to box no more and so he went back home to Santa Paula.

In the meantime, I’m doing construction, I’m out of the business. In 1986, early in the year, I decided I was gonna call Lupe’s dad, cause he and I were friends. So we’re talking and I said, “How’s Lupe?” And he says, “He’s retired.” And I says, “Retired?!” And he tells me the story, and I said, “Tell Lupe I’ll call him later on today.”

And I called him in the evening, and it was sometime early in ’86, maybe the third month, fourth month, and I asked him point blank, I said, “Do you wanna fight?”

And he said, “Yes.” He said, “Yes, I wanna fight, but they say they won’t let me. They’re gonna sue me, they’re gonna do this, they’re gonna do that.”

And I said, “Well, first of all, they can’t keep you from earning a living. If you wanna fight, if you wanna train, I’ll bring you down here to West Covina — because I was living in West Covina at the time — and I’ll get you an apartment, I’ll get you a bicycle, cause i’m not gonna get you a car — (laughing) Because he was a crazy kid — so I’ll get you a bicycle and once you get down here I’ll start searching for some fights.”

So he comes down to West Covina and we’re training and I called Mel Greb who at the time was Top Rank’s matchmaker and I explained the situation, and Mel said, “Yeah, I can get you a fight. It’s just, we’re probably gonna have to put a third on the side for the managers. The commission is just going to take a third and give it to the managers, so that’s ok, but the commission won’t keep him from fighting.” So we fought. We fought one time in September, and one time in November, and in November he had a fifth-round knockout of Dio Colome which was was the ESPN knockout of the year.

So that’s two fights into the new career of Lupe, and in December of that year, of ’86, I went to the fights at the Forum. And when I went to the Forum, an old friend of mine who’s actually my neighbor in West Covina, Marty Denkin, who was the commissioner of California at the time, came up to me and put his arm around me and he said, “Hey, young man, I want you to straighten this out, because the commission cannot be dealing with this.” He says it in a kind of rough voice. And I said, “Yes, sir. Whatever you want me to do.”

So he hooked me up with Sayatovich there at that fight. Terry Norris was fighting that night as well. It was one of his first professional fights. And Sayatovich and I talked for a little bit and we agreed to meet after the New Year in January, in the middle of January down there in San Diego. So I drove down, met with him and one of the partners, and the first thing the partner said to me is, “If you’re the guy that can make this young man fight, you’re the guy that needs to be training him.”

So they kind of saw that this guy wasn’t going to fight for them, and that if they wanted to move Lupe that I needed to be the one. So we made some arrangements, not only financial but on who was responsible for what, and we fought again in February. We got another knockout. And then Bob offered — cause, the reason I went down there, was because they were offering the fight with Duane Thomas on the Hagler-Leaonard card in May. And that was for the title. And we had talked to Bob and it was all gonna be on that card, but Duane Thomas got hurt. So we fought on the card also, but we didn’t fight Duane Thomas. We fought a guy named Davy Moore. We stopped him in the eighth. Davey Moore was run over by a car, I think. He was killed about three or four years after we fought him. But the fight was stopped in the eighth round. We were the first fight on HBO that night on April 6.

That must have been incredible just to be there for that Hagler-Leonard fight.

It was outdoors. Caesar’s Palace. That’s what really — like an aha moment and you get goosebumps — wow, I’m here, I’m witnessing this. I’m a part of history. And to be the first fight on HBO, which was at 6:00, I think nobody saw us, but still, we were on the Hagler-Leonard card! So when i say I’ve had a blessed career I mean exactly that, I’ve had a blessed career.

So, anyway, we fight that fight, and Bob sets us up to fight July 12 against Duane Thomas for the title and that was my first champion. My second champion was Terry Norris. My third champion was Orlin Norris. And they were my first three fighters of my career.

The first three fighters of your career all became world champions?

Yeah.

Wow. These guys came to you later in their careers. Did you also have kids that you taught to jab, like you taught from scratch and they came up and fought?

No, I want to say that I have them now, that I had them in the gym back when I was with Terry. I think that there’s great amateur coaches and there’s great coaches that have these programs where they teach amateur kids and they’re always gonna be great amateur coaches but they can’t make it as a pro coach, like I say, like to take them to the top.

I like to believe that i’m a polisher. You know, I take a diamond in the rough that’s a good fighter and I polish him to the point where, look, I got one in the Hall of Fame now and there’s another one going in the Hall of Fame soon, after he retires. I got a kid named Gassiev who came to me with 25 amateur fights, and he’s the IBF world champion. I think everyone has their calling, and I think mine was to be a polisher, to finish them off.

Is that the same way you are as a builder as well? Is your skill in polishing?

No, in my gym and in my home I did all the concrete, all the framing, all the blueprints. I like to do everything. I like to be involved in all aspects of it. I’m not efficient at, I can’t do the plumbing, although I know how. I can’t do the electric because I’m not a professional at it, but I like to be involved in all aspects of it and make sure that everything gets done to my satisfaction.

What have you not accomplished yet in boxing that you want to?

Really, I never did and I still don’t have any particular goals as far as the boxing. My most pleasurable moment, God’s honest truth, is is to watch a kid’s face, they’re like my kids, watch their face, the smile on their face when they win something. When they’ve done well inside the ring.

I just had a kid named Dennis Shafikov fight in Toledo, Ohio. We lost a decision against a kid named Rob Easter. I knew we were gonna lose in Toledo, that we were gonna be robbed like that, because the kid was from Toledo and it was his hometown. And if you go back and look at the fight, you’ll see. But anyway, after the fight, we step outside the ring and he looks at me and I hugged him and I told him, “I’m so proud of you” because it was the kind of fight that makes you so proud to be part of. I wasn’t happy that we lost, but just the fact that I picked him up and hugged him and kissed him on the forehead, and he understood exactly what I was talking about. But that, to me, is more rewarding than…I think that I’ve accomplished everything that I set out to accomplish. It’s all dessert now. It’s all like the cherry on top.

Wasn’t Dennis the one who beat Jamel Herring?

Yeah.

There was a great local kid named Julian Rodriguez, and I felt like Julian got robbed in the Olympic Trials against Jamel. I think USA Boxing thought Jamel would be a good face for the brand because he was a Marine.

Well, you know what, before the fight, they’re calling us out. They put us over in the holding area, and there’s this 32” TV in front of us, and they’re going through this documentary about Jamel Herring. And we’re standing there! It’s a fifteen minute documentary on ESPN or whatever channel it was, showing about his career in the Olympics and his career in the service and they’re building him up, and I felt bad because it was July 2. And right before July 4, I feel bad that this Marine, we’re gonna beat up! And Dennis went out and just proceeded to beat the heck out of him, and actually Jamel just lost Tuesday, the first fight after Shafikov, I think.

I know you love photography and golf. Do you think you’ll ever publish your photographs?

Well, maybe one of these days. I have a lot of them, and I continue to take them, but I may one day. They’ve asked me to write a little book and put some pictures in it, but I haven’t had time to meet with anybody yet, but I think one day I will.

I have a lot of friends who are photographers, and they love to come into the gym. I think photographers love boxers.

Well, I’ve had the privilege of really working with some historical kids, kids that are gonna go down in history, and I’ve got pictures of those kids, personal pictures, so it could be interesting down the road to put them out.

What are your favorite photographs that you’ve taken?

There’s one that I took of Gennady in the snow, I don’t know if you’ve seen it. It was all over the Internet. Him running in the snow in January. I wasn’t as proficient before. I used to just have a little Minolta. Now, obviously, I can afford a better camera. But I probably take 200 or 300 pictures a day.

And what kind of camera do you have now?

I have a Cannon 1DX mark 2.

I don’t know anything about cameras, is that a great one?

That is the best.

And how about golf? Are you as competitive in golf as you are in boxing?

Absolutely, I’m a 12 handicap.

There’s another thing I know nothing about.

Well, they say that the average amateur is about a 25 handicap. I play with Moretti from Top Rank. Since you’re from over there, I’ve played the Trump courses over there. That course where the open was held, I forget what it’s called. I’ve played some of the better courses in the United States because of my association in boxing.

What do you like about golf?

The fact that you can’t beat it. The more you try, the more you try, the more you try, it’s a sport you just can’t beat. You could feel like a king today and tomorrow you feel like you just started playing.

Ha! Do you think boxing is the same way?

Boxing is the same way. It’s all how you slept that night, how your mental outlook is. And in boxing it’s the same thing. I’ve always said, “I’d rather have a boxer that’s 50% in shape but 100% wants to kick the crap out of somebody than a boxer that’s 100% in shape but got into an argument with his girlfriend or his wife the night before.

When you play golf, do you bet money on it?

Sometimes, I’ll bet $1 or $2. There’s a joke on me in the gym, because if i’m gonna bet on a fight, I bet a dollar. I don;t bet more than a dollar. It’s just the fact that I won, not that I won money.

What do you think about this circus with Mayweather and McGregor?

I think it’s sad. I think it’s sad for boxing. I think it’s sad for Floyd. They’re making it all about money and obviously we all want to make money but there’s a lot of other ways. He’s made a lot of money already, and he’s making a mockery of his sport. A sport in which he wants to be remembered and revered by the fans.

Is there anything that people don’t know about Abel Sanchez that you wish they knew?

Abel Sanchez, at everything he’s every done, has given it, to a fault, I guess, has given it 110%. I want to be better than everybody at everything I do. But I don’t want to buy it, I want to earn it.

And where do you think that drive comes from, that need to be the best?

I had two very hard-working parents that strived to give us as much as they could, and obviously, we came from a poor background. We came from very meager beginnings. But they were working. Both of them. My father died because he was a workaholic. He died at 54, because he worked himself to death. But I think wanting my kids and my family to have more than I ever had, that’s a driving force for me.

Did he have a heart attack, your dad?

Yes, he had heart attack.

And I know that you yourself had suffered from one, is that right?

Yes I had a heart attack in 2001.

Have you change at all your routine since then?

I changed my diet. I changed my work. I used to have four or five different businesses going at the same time. I cut that down. I always had my hands in a lot of fires. I don’t do construction no more, I don’t run no more businesses like that, because it was more of a stress heart attack than anything else. Thats what the doctor said. But boxing seems to keep me busy enough and I get enough relaxation through golf and taking pictures and developing them.

And what is your wife’s name?

Beverly.

And how long have you been married?

Well, actually we’re not married but we’ve been together 18 years.

How did you meet each other?

At a restaurant, believe it or not. I used to go into the restaurant here in Big Bear and study my plans and do my proposals and she was a server in the restaurant.

Aw! What was the name of the restaurant?

It was an IHOP actually.

And were you a regular there?

I was a regular after I saw her. Because the first thing when I walked in and I saw her, I said, “Uh oh, that’s gonna be mine right there.”

Ha! And what was it about her?

Her spunk. She was very beautiful but it was the one-liners.

And is she a boxing fan?

Absolutely. She’s the den mother. She helps me however she can. Obviously, it’s difficult, because I don’t allow women in the gym, so she doesn’t like to come in because they walk around the house. They walk around half-clothed, the fighters. So she doesn’t like to come in, but anything they need, sending stuff home or medicine or groceries or going to the post office, she’s the one who helps.

Do you let, if there’s press, do you let women reporters in?

Yes, of course. I’ll tell you a story. About when I started doing that. I had a fighter who was training there who brought his wife every day, beautiful young lady, she was about 25 and always wore provocative clothing. And I’ve got seven or eight guys in the gym that are training and these are boys who’ve been away from home for eight to ten weeks. And I would hate for one of these boys to look at her the wrong way and then her husband to get upset. And then we’ve got issues in the gym. I mean, these boys have been training together and then this young lady got in the middle of it and, so in order to avid that, and again I go back to Emmanuel Steward. You do things today that are gonna help you later on. So if you don’t allow something to get worse, you nip it in the bud. So that’s why I stopped allowing women in the gym.

We’ve had issues in my gym like that. This one boy we had to kick out. I think he would bring his girlfriend in just to provoke fights. I think it’s bad, too, for the female athletes, because I personally do think women can train alongside men if everybody is focused and professional.

Yeah, well, I’ve had Ronda Rousey in my gym training, and I gave her her time. I had Lucia Rijker training in my gym and I gave her her time, her hours.

If your boxing career were a house, what stage would it be in right now? Is it finished?

I think i have about 90% right now.

OK, so what’s left?

I have a couple kids in my gym, Gassiev being one of them, that I want to see fulfill their dreams.

And at what point are their dreams fulfilled? Like for Gennady, would you say he’s mid-career right now?

I would say Gennady is at 70% of his career right now. I think he’s got another three or four years, but I think at his level, and at Andre’s level and at Floyd’s level, all the elite fighters, I think it’s more the mental challenge than the physical challenge. There have to be fights out there that they can look forward to fighting and to preparing for. Not just preparing for the fight, but preparing for the fighter. Those elite guys need a challenge, a mental challenge.

For Gassiev it’s a little bit different, because Gassiev is only 23 years old. So we have a while before he reaches that dream moment. So if I bow out. If I decide after Golovkin, that’s it for me, it would be like they asked me to do for Terry Norris. I would be saying I couldn’t be there for him, and I don’t think I could do that.

Speaking of Andre Ward, because I know you trained Kovalev for a minute, were you surprised at how easily Andre handled him in that rematch?

No, I wasn’t because Andre had a good, complete situation, not only where he’s at, where he stays, what he does, but Virgil being a stable person, Virgil being with him for a long time, Virgil having the opportunity to watch the first fight and formulate a plan and have Andre listen to it.

On the other hand, Sergei was by himself. He didn’t believe John David Jackson. He didn’t want to listen to John David Jackson. He brought in some amateur coach from Russia who had never coached in the pros before. You gotta look at reality. John David Jackson is a three-time world champion. I think he knows a little something about boxing. So for this young man to not listen to him and at least prepare in a way…

The thing is, Sergei wants to be the boss. And it’s like wanting to be your own brain surgeon. It doesn’t work. I’ve seen Sergei deteriorate in the last three or four fights because, I mean, yes, he beat Pascal, he beat Hopkins, but these guys were over their best game anyway. He’s beaten these guys because he’s got good punching power, he’s a strong kid, but it’s really the same thing over and over again. He hasn’t improved. And it’s because he won’t allow the people around him to coach him. They want to. I’m sure John wants to. And I’m sure whoever the next coach will be will want to. And it’s sad.

I guess sometimes the very stubbornness that makes somebody a good fighter can make them uncoachable.

Yes, and that’s why I asked him to leave. I didn’t want one bad apple in my crate. And he’s a good fighter. When he left, I said, “In two fights, you’re gonna be a world champion. But you can’t do this by yourself, Sergei.” But he’s still young. And if he buckles down and he listens to somebody, well, trusts somebody is a better word. Because you have to trust.

It’s funny because I think trust requires vulnerability, to really put yourself in the hands of a coach, and I think sometimes that’s hard for a fighter.

Yes, it is hard, but another old trainer I used to know, when fighters didn’t do their thing, he would say, “Well, the next time you come back to the corner we’ll put a mirror in front of you and you could just tell yourself what to do.” I mean, what’s the sense of me being here?

Let me tell you another story. I saw Emmanuel Steward, back in the early ’80s training a young man named Fabian Williams. And he was on TV, fighting on ESPN or USA or something like that. And Fabian wasn’t doing what Emmanuel said, and Emmanuel was just getting madder and madder and you can hear him raising his voice and I wanna say the 5th or 6th round, Emmanuel doesn’t get up on the ring, and the kid comes back to the corner and there’s no coaches there! On TV! I’ll never forget that day.

What do you love most about boxing?

I gotta say it’s the smile on my kids’ faces when they do something that will impact their lives. Really I’ve had a blessed life. I’ve done everything I wanted to do, I’ve won everything I wanted to win, I’ve bought everything I wanted to buy. So for me, it’s about my kids, when we do something together that’s beneficial, and with the fighters, too, just to watch the joy of success.