Theodore A. "Teddy" Atlas Jr. (born July 29, 1956) is an American boxing trainer and fight commentator.
Early life
The son of a doctor, Atlas grew up in a
wealthy
Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...
area of
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
. His mother, Mary Riley Atlas, was a former contestant in the
Miss America
Miss America is an annual competition that is open to women from the United States between the ages of 17 and 25. Originating in 1921 as a "bathing beauty revue", the contest is now judged on competitors' talent performances and interviews. As ...
pageant system, as well as a model. His father was of
Hungarian Jewish
The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived i ...
ancestry and his mother of
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
descent. Atlas was raised in his mother's Catholic faith and spent summers in
Spring Lake, New Jersey
Spring Lake is a borough situated on the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 2,993,[Rikers Island
Rikers Island is a island in the East River between Queens and the Bronx that contains New York City's main jail complex. Named after Abraham Rycken, who took possession of the island in 1664, the island was originally under in size, but has ...]
. Atlas was involved in a street fight in
Stapleton, Staten Island
Stapleton is a neighborhood in northeastern Staten Island in New York City in the United States. It is located along the waterfront of Upper New York Bay, roughly bounded on the north by Tompkinsville at Grant Street, on the south by Clifton a ...
, in which his face was severely slashed with a "007"
flick knife
A switchblade (aka switch knife, automatic knife, pushbutton knife, ejector knife, flick knife, Stiletto, flick blade, or spring knife (Sprenger,Benson, Ragnar (1989). ''Switchblade: The Ace of Blades''. Paladin Press. pp. 1–14. . The sw ...
. The wound took 400 stitches in total to close, with 200 on the outside of his face and 200 on the inside. The attack left him with a distinctive scar.
Career
Boxing trainer
Atlas trained as an amateur boxer with
Hall of Fame
A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...
trainer
Cus D'Amato
Constantine "Cus" D'Amato (January 17, 1908 – November 4, 1985) was an Italian-American boxing manager and trainer who handled the careers of Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson, and José Torres, all of whom went on to be inducted into the Internatio ...
. He had some amateur fights and won a 135-pound Golden Gloves title but had to turn to work as a trainer due to a back injury. Atlas was an assistant to D'Amato, although his role in the Catskill Boxing Club was short-lived. In 1980 he trained
Sweden Olympic Boxing Team for
1980 Summer Olympics
The 1980 Summer Olympics (russian: Летние Олимпийские игры 1980, Letniye Olimpiyskiye igry 1980), officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad (russian: Игры XXII Олимпиады, Igry XXII Olimpiady) and commo ...
. His duties included assisting in the training of D'Amato's teenage protégé
Mike Tyson
Michael Gerard Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 2005. Nicknamed "Iron Mike" and "Kid Dynamite" in his early career, and later known as "The Baddest Man on the Planet", Tyson is cons ...
. However, Atlas left the camp in 1982 following an altercation with the 15-year-old Tyson after Tyson had been sexually inappropriate with an 11-year-old female relative of Atlas' (Tyson said he had grabbed the girl's buttocks). Atlas put a .38 caliber handgun to Tyson's ear and told him to never touch his family again, or he would kill him if he did. This altercation between Atlas and a young Mike Tyson led to Atlas' dismissal from the Catskill Boxing Club, and he was told he was no longer welcome in D'Amato's home or around any of his adopted children (his fighters whom he had legally adopted, Tyson included).
Atlas enjoyed his biggest success as head trainer to
Michael Moorer
Michael Lee Moorer (born November 12, 1967) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2008. He won a world championship on four occasions in two weight classes, having held the WBO light heavyweight title from 1988 to ...
, whom he guided to the world
heavyweight
Heavyweight is a weight class in combat sports and professional wrestling.
Boxing Professional
Boxers who weigh over are considered heavyweights by 3 of the 4 major professional boxing organizations: the International Boxing Federation, the Wo ...
title in 1994. He drew criticism for what some considered to be overly dramatic speeches in the ring corner, particularly during Moorer's heavyweight title fight with
Evander Holyfield
Evander Holyfield (born October 19, 1962) is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1984 and 2011. He reigned as the undisputed champion at cruiserweight in the late 1980s and at heavyweight in the early 1990s, and is the on ...
, and some felt he did this to draw attention to himself rather than help his fighter. During one such speech, Atlas blocked Moorer from sitting on his stool and asked, "Do you want me to take over?" Atlas has denied this, stating that he did what he believed the fighter needed based on his understanding of the fighter. Moorer went on to defeat Holyfield by a majority decision, with Moorer's manager John Davimos crediting Atlas' motivation, stating "I don't know if Michael could have done this without Teddy Atlas."
Atlas also worked the corners of
featherweight
Featherweight is a weight class in the combat sports of boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts, and Greco-Roman wrestling.
Boxing
Professional boxing
History
A featherweight boxer weighs in at a limit of . In the early days of the division, this ...
world champion
Barry McGuigan
Finbar Patrick McGuigan MBE (born 28 February 1961) is an Irish boxing promoter and former professional boxer. Born in Clones, Ireland, McGuigan was nicknamed ''The Clones Cyclone'' and held the WBA and lineal featherweight titles from 1985 ...
in one fight and
light heavyweight
Light heavyweight, also referred to as junior cruiserweight or light cruiserweight, is a weight class in combat sports.
Boxing Professional
In professional boxing, the division is above and up to , falling between super middleweight and cruise ...
Donny Lalonde
Donny Lalonde (born March 12, 1960) is a retired professional
boxer. His nickname is "Golden Boy," after the Golden Boy statue atop the Manitoba Legislative Building in his boxing home town of Winnipeg. Lalonde held the WBC Light Heavyweight C ...
. Lalonde was a top-ranked boxer and went 8–0 with Atlas as his trainer, but they clashed in temperament and style. "He ran things like an army camp," Lalonde said, "I'm more of a free spirit." Lalonde also said it was a waste of time in his career. He and Atlas parted ways, and Lalonde hired
Tommy Gallagher as his new trainer. In his autobiography, Atlas claimed he was so angry at having been fired by Lalonde that he went to Lalonde's house with a gun intending to kill him. However, Lalonde refuted Atlas' story, claiming he did not even live at the apartment Atlas described at the time. Lalonde also called Atlas "the least significant of all my trainers throughout my career."
In 2009, Atlas began training Russian heavyweight
Alexander Povetkin
Alexander Vladimirovich "Sasha" Povetkin (russian: Алекса́ндр Влади́мирович Пове́ткин; born 2 September 1979) is a Russian former professional boxer who competed from 2005 to 2021. He held the WBA (Regular) heavyw ...
as Povetkin prepared for an eventual title match against
Wladimir Klitschko
Wladimir Klitschko; an equivalent English spelling is Vladimir Klichko . His full name in uk, label=Ukrainian is, Володимир Володимирович Кличко, Volodymyr Volodymyrovych Klychko, . ( uk, Володимир Вол ...
. Povetkin was a former world amateur champ and was the number one contender. Atlas said that Povetkin "wasn't ready" for Klitschko
In 2015, Atlas returned to training to prepare
Timothy Bradley
Timothy Ray Bradley Jr. (born August 29, 1983) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2004 to 2016. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the WBC light welterweight title twice between 2008 an ...
for his
welterweight
Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like Muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify the ...
title defense against
Brandon Rios
Brandon may refer to:
Names and people
*Brandon (given name), a male given name
* Brandon (surname), a surname with several different origins
Places
Australia
*Brandon, a farm and 19th century homestead in Seaham, New South Wales
*Brandon, Q ...
. With Atlas in his corner, Bradley knocked out Rios in the ninth round of their fight, which took place on November 7, 2015, in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
.
In September 2018 Atlas agreed to train
Oleksandr Gvozdyk
Oleksandr Serhiyovych Gvozdyk ( uk, Олександр Сергійович Гвоздик, ; also Hvozdyk; born 15 April 1987) is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 2014 to 2019. He held the WBC and lineal light-heavyweig ...
for upcoming fight with
Adonis Stevenson
Stevenson Adonis (born 22 September 1977), best known as Adonis Stevenson, is a Haitian Canadian former professional boxer who competed from 2006 to 2018. He won the WBC, '' Ring'' magazine and lineal light-heavyweight titles in 2013 by defeati ...
on December 1, 2018 in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
for
WBC and
lineal light heavyweight titles.
In 2019, when asked who, in his opinion, was the best overall of the boxers he had trained, he said
Wilfred Benítez
Wilfred "Wilfredo" Benítez (born September 12, 1958) is an American-born Puerto Rican former professional boxer and the youngest world champion in the sport's history. Earning his first of three career world titles in separate weight division ...
.
Sportscasting
Atlas served as a commentator for
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
, formerly for
ESPN2
ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%).
ESPN2 was initially fo ...
's ''
Friday Night Fights
The cable television network ESPN has occasionally broadcast boxing events over the majority of its history, as part of several arrangements, including contracts with specific promotions and consortiums such as Golden Boy Promotions, Premier Box ...
'' and ''Wednesday Night Fights'' and later for ESPN's
Premier Boxing Champions
''Premier Boxing Champions'' (PBC) is an ongoing series of televised boxing events connected to manager Al Haymon.
PBC was initially promoted as an effort to return boxing to mainstream broadcast and cable television, as opposed to premium chann ...
fights. On January 25, 2008, Atlas was suspended by ESPN twice, once for threatening a crew member and once (for one week) after confronting the network's boxing program director, Doug Loughrey. Atlas accused Loughrey of showing favoritism to certain promoters and matchmakers, who were abusing their ESPN connections by taking fighters from other promoters with promises of potential ESPN dates. In December 2017, Atlas was removed from ESPN's live fight coverage after 21 years of ringside commentating following his criticism of the judging in the
Manny Pacquiao–Jeff Horn fight.
He is in contract until 2020,
[ and continues to provide boxing analysis for ESPN.
In 2001, Atlas won the ]Sam Taub Award The Sam Taub Award is a yearly award presented by the Boxing Writers Association of America for Excellence in Broadcasting Journalism. The award is named after Sam Taub, a journalist and radio broadcaster who is best known for his work covering box ...
for excellence in boxing broadcasting journalism. Atlas worked as a boxing commentator for NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
's coverage of the Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
in Sydney (2000), Athens (2004), Beijing (2008), London (2012) and Rio de Janeiro (2016).
Atlas was a contributor on fight doctor Ferdie Pacheco's ''The 12 Greatest Rounds of Boxing'' DVD. In it, he stated that in the first Ali-Liston fight, during the famous "blind round" in which Ali could not see after being hit by Liston's gloves which had been smeared in a substance that temporarily blinded Ali, he would have refused to have cut Ali's gloves off and would have simply sent him out with the advice to just "run".
Atlas is also featured as a member of the in-game commentary team on ''Fight Night Round 4
''Fight Night Round 4'' is a boxing video game developed by EA Sports. It is the sequel to ''Fight Night Round 3'', released in 2006. It was released in 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry. The game's featured boxers ...
'' and ''Fight Night Champion
''Fight Night Champion'' is a boxing video game developed by EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts. It is the fifth and last entry in the ''Fight Night'' series and was released in March 2011 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game takes ...
'', alongside Joe Tessitore
Joseph William Tessitore (born January 1, 1971) is an American sportscaster for ABC and ESPN. He leads ESPN's world championship fight broadcasts as the blow-by-blow broadcaster for Top Rank Boxing on ESPN, serves as a play-by-play announcer f ...
.
Other
In 1989 he was part of the cast and the crew in the film '' Triumph of the Spirit'' which portrays the story of Salamo Arouch Jewish Greek boxer who survived the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
by boxing (over 200 bouts) for the entertainment of German Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
officers in Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
Concentration Camp. Atlas played the role of Klaus Silber, main antagonist in the movie. He was also a boxing consultant for Willem Dafoe
Willem James Dafoe (; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Willem Dafoe, various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, in addition to receiving nominations for ...
.
Personal life
Atlas is married to Elaine, with whom he has two children: Teddy III and Nicole. Teddy III works in the Las Vegas Raiders
The Las Vegas Raiders are a professional American football team based in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The Raiders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West divis ...
' scouting department.
In 1997, he founded the Dr. Theodore Atlas Foundation to honor the memory of his father. The foundation awards scholarships and grants to individuals and organizations. Atlas published his autobiography, ''Atlas: From the Streets to the Ring: A Son's Struggle to Become a Man'', in 2006. The book covers many different periods of Atlas's life and compares his position as trainer to a role as a father.
Honors
Atlas has been inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame
The Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame mission is "to recognize those individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to Staten Island sports history, and by virtue of their accomplishments, service, or force of character, have enriched tha ...
in 2005.
Trained boxers
* Chris Reid (IBF
The International Boxing Federation (IBF) is one of four major organizations recognized by the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) which sanctions professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Counci ...
super middleweight
Super middleweight, or light cruiserweight, is a weight class in combat sports.
Boxing
In professional boxing, super middleweight is contested between the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions, in which boxers can weigh between 160 pounds ( ...
contender)
* Jimmy McMahon
* Timothy Bradley
Timothy Ray Bradley Jr. (born August 29, 1983) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2004 to 2016. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the WBC light welterweight title twice between 2008 an ...
* Felix Santiago
* Donny Lalonde
Donny Lalonde (born March 12, 1960) is a retired professional
boxer. His nickname is "Golden Boy," after the Golden Boy statue atop the Manitoba Legislative Building in his boxing home town of Winnipeg. Lalonde held the WBC Light Heavyweight C ...
1985–1986, 8 fights
* Michael Moorer
Michael Lee Moorer (born November 12, 1967) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2008. He won a world championship on four occasions in two weight classes, having held the WBO light heavyweight title from 1988 to ...
1993–1997, 7 fights
* Barry McGuigan
Finbar Patrick McGuigan MBE (born 28 February 1961) is an Irish boxing promoter and former professional boxer. Born in Clones, Ireland, McGuigan was nicknamed ''The Clones Cyclone'' and held the WBA and lineal featherweight titles from 1985 ...
* Michael Grant 2001–2003, 9 fights
* Alexander Povetkin
Alexander Vladimirovich "Sasha" Povetkin (russian: Алекса́ндр Влади́мирович Пове́ткин; born 2 September 1979) is a Russian former professional boxer who competed from 2005 to 2021. He held the WBA (Regular) heavyw ...
2009–2011, 6 fights
* Oleksandr Gvozdyk
Oleksandr Serhiyovych Gvozdyk ( uk, Олександр Сергійович Гвоздик, ; also Hvozdyk; born 15 April 1987) is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 2014 to 2019. He held the WBC and lineal light-heavyweig ...
2018 - till now, 3 fights
See also
*
References
External links
Biography
at ESPN MediaZone
Dr. Theodore Atlas Foundation
Bio file interview profile with Teddy Atlas
at BoxingInsider.com
New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atlas, Teddy
1956 births
Living people
Jewish American sportspeople
American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
American people of Irish descent
Boxers from New York City
Sportspeople from Staten Island
Boxing commentators
American boxing trainers
American male boxers
21st-century American Jews