One of the greatest boxing faces and voices of all time – Teddy Atlas has joined some elite company this past weekend when he was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in New York, US.
Atlas is one of the most famous trainers and his career speaks for itself – he got his first steps in boxing from the late great Cus D’Amato and started training people at the age of 19.
He coached Mike Tyson as an amateur and was the main guy in Michael Moorer’s corner when “MM” outboxed Evander Holyfield for the WBA, IBF, and lineal heavyweight titles back in 1994. The 62-years-old also gave directions to boxers such as Alexander Povetkin, Wilfred Benitez, Shannon Briggs, Simon Brown, Joey Gamache, Donny Lalonde, Barry McGuigan, Tracy Patterson, and Timothy Bradley Jr. Right now Atlas trains light heavyweight world champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk.
Apart from being one of the great coaches, Atlas is one of the best boxing pundits in the world. He is under contract with ESPN. It’s worth mentioning that was inducted to the HOF as a broadcaster, but there is no doubt that sooner or later he’ll get that kind of acknowledgment as a trainer also.
The other inductees of the 2019 class are: former welterweight and junior middleweight world champion Donald Curry, former junior middleweight and middleweight titleholder Julian Jackson and James “Buddy” McGirt — who won world titles at junior welterweight and welterweight — in the modern boxer category; former welterweight world champion Tony DeMarco in the old-timer category; legendary Top Rank publicist Lee Samuels, promoter and matchmaker Don Elbaum and Canadian judge and referee Guy Jutras in the non-participant category; and the late Puerto Rican journalist Mario Rivera Martino, who was also elected in the observer category.
