BoxRec

Please post your thoughts

Not sure but it had to.be a great mental plus having such a great trainer in his corner.Maybe.the right words were what at the right time carried Srl to victory vs Hearns

i am not an expert, but my guess is he was much
more important for ali.

Helped a lot

I think of dundee as being overrated. He had ali and leonard. those men didnt need someone giving them the "right words". His greatest contribution to ali was probably the cooper incident and with leonard he gave ray the right words against hearns. But the bottom line is what ray did in 81 against tommy he repeated in 89 without dundee ie to come back and charge late when he needed it.

Dundees record with other fighters is overly disapointing and he cant be blamed for their lack of discipline either in the case of pinklon thomas etc just as he shouldnt get the credit too much either for other things

His value to Leonard was the same as his value to Ali...motivator. There was nothing he could help those guys with from a technical or tactical point of view

I vividly recall Dundee in Pinklon Thomas' corner V Tyson. It was a live telecast and Thomas was getting a thrashing. The ringside doctor went over to see how Thomas was doing (he was none too well). Upon enquiring about Thomas' wellbeing Dundee replied "get da fukk away from this man, he's fine". The very next round Thomas was sent into orbit

bollox wrote:His value to Leonard was the same as his value to Ali...motivator. There was nothing he could help those guys with from a technical or tactical point of view

I vividly recall Dundee in Pinklon Thomas' corner V Tyson. It was a live telecast and Thomas was getting a thrashing. The ringside doctor went over to see how Thomas was doing (he was none too well). Upon enquiring about Thomas' wellbeing Dundee replied "get da fukk away from this man, he's fine". The very next round Thomas was sent into orbit

He didn't fare any better for Berbick v Tyson either, he spent valuable talking time looking in a bucket and shouting " where's the fukkin sponge?"

Dundee should be in infamous figure for letting Ali under his watch carry on fighting after Shavers. He must have been blind not to see the deteriotaion in reflexes, speed and the slurred speech.

He makes excuses blaming the black moslems and trying to be the hero of the piece saying he pulled him out against Holmes. Hell a drugged up parkinsons ravaged Ali had no business being in with Holmes in the first place. The proof in the pudding was he let Ali go back in with berbick.

Pacheco took his stance and Dundee couldnt didnt want to.

If he was such a genius trainer how come apart from those two who were already the hottest ticket going pro he hasnt been able to do just about anything of note with anyone who hadnt been groomed elsewhere

Eddie Futch was a far better man

Im sceptical as to how much he taught ray or Ali.
Probably not a whole lot. These guys were turning pro as great olympic champions with unreal skill and talent.
I guess he moved him along pretty well but a manager has say so in that and wasnt that Mike Trainer?

And yeah, I never liked his response to letting Ali in there with Holmes and Berbick.Something along the lines of "I got no right to tell a man how to make a living". I get that,but, he was also standing on the ring apron in every sparring session that Ali had leading up to those fights and Im sure he saw him getting hammered in there.Theres no way that he could think that Ali was gonna win those fights. In fact he had to know that a beating was coming. Still, he, along with alot of others let it go on.

Hard to say how much value he added; Leonard would have been great with almost anyone.

Disagree with the comments that Dundee did not have much success outside of with Ali and Leonard.
Carmen Basilio and Willie Pastrano were not the most talented guys but won world titles. Both beat far more talented fighters.
Jimmy Ellis career was not going that well until Dundee started to train him. He had several other fighters that won titles as well.

He didn't really train Leonard, but he matched him perfectly in his rise as a fighter. And when I say matched him perfectly, I don't mean consistent soft touches just to make him look good; Leonard grew up in the professional ranks fighting all sorts of styles, where his competition steadily grew more and more challenging. Leonard was matched exactly how every single promising prospect should be matched and he prospered because of it. Talent had a great deal to do with Leonard being able to establish himself as a top welterweight and capable of beating Benitez without having even fought as a professional for three years, but I'm sure he benefited a great deal from Dundee's matchmaking, too.

You are right in that he was not with Leonard on a day to day basis. He would come towards the end of training and of course was usually in the corner. He did this with several fighters, including Ali.
Good point about the matchmaking. Early in his career, Leonard was matched up against good competition but not over matched. He beat 8 Top 10 contenders before he fought for the title. In the long run, this is the best way to bring a fighter along.