Counter-puncher wrote:Manny Steward
I was waiting for this one to come up!
OVERRATED.
He makes fighters more technically sound, but often at the cost of their aggression, fire, and offensive prowess.
Look at how Jermain Taylor performed progressively worse under Steward, until finally he got himself KO'd. Then look at how he suddenly regained his fire and form as soon as he fired Steward. Yes, he did lose to Pavlik in the end, but he came far closer to beating him than he did under Steward. (BTW, did anyone else notice how Manny was nowhere to be seen when Taylor was being interviewed in his dressing room after the first Pavlik fight? That's after Manny had talked all sorts of trash about how Taylor was going to whup him going into the fight.
)
Steward's work with Lennox Lewis is vastly overrated IMO. He did fine-tune Lennox to some degree, but there wasn't the big findamental change that people make it out to be. He was still inconsistent under Manny and had his share of embarassing performances (including his loss to Rahman) under him as well. Also, Manny took away Lennox's left hook, which had showed promise early in his career, and limited him to being a jab-right kind of fighter.
I believe Manny has had a similar effect on Wlad Klitschko. He's made him a bit better technically and defensively, but at the same time has taken away some of the fire that once made him so feared in the division.
I also believe Manny looks to work only with fighters that are obviously hugely talented to begin with (like Lennox and Wlad) and then just fine-tune them, rather than take fighters of moderate talents and build them from the ground up (the way Joe Goossen does).
And for some reason, Manny gets a free pass for the inept job he did with Prince Hamed going into the Barrera fight. The extent of his "advice" in the corner consisted of, "Try not to wobble so much when you get hit".
Next up: Azumah Nelson.
D