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| '''Theodore A. "Teddy" Atlas, Jr.''' (b. 29 July 1954, in ], ]) is a well-known boxing trainer and fight commentator. The son of a doctor, Atlas grew up in a wealthy area of Staten Island. His mother Mari Ryan Atlas was a former contestant in the Miss America pageant system, as well as a model. His father was of Hungarian - Jewish |
'''Theodore A. "Teddy" Atlas, Jr.''' (b. 29 July 1954, in ], ]) is a well-known boxing trainer and fight commentator. The son of a doctor, Atlas grew up in a wealthy area of Staten Island. His mother Mari Ryan Atlas was a former contestant in the Miss America pageant system, as well as a model. His father was of Hungarian - Jewish descent. His parents were loving and upscale people. Teddy spent summers in Spring Lake New Jersey, with his families friends. He was known to be violent to his family and friends. His brother Tommy shot his grandmother in 1978, causing a disturbance in the Atlas family’s life. Thomas Atlas is an inmate at NYS Prison at Marcy, N.Y. He was also arrested after beating his sister Meridith. By his own admission, Atlas had a somewhat troubled, rebellious youth. He dropped out of school and was arrested several times, once serving time on Riker’s Island. Atlas was involved in a street fight in which his face was severely slashed with a knife. The wound took four hundred stitches to close leaving him with a distinctive scar. Teddy enjoyed such attention. He is currently married to Elaine, where they have two children together, Teddy Jr and Nicole. | ||
| ==Career as a trainer== | ==Career as a trainer== | ||
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Theodore A. "Teddy" Atlas, Jr. (b. 29 July 1954, in Staten Island, New York) is a well-known boxing trainer and fight commentator. The son of a doctor, Atlas grew up in a wealthy area of Staten Island. His mother Mari Ryan Atlas was a former contestant in the Miss America pageant system, as well as a model. His father was of Hungarian - Jewish descent. His parents were loving and upscale people. Teddy spent summers in Spring Lake New Jersey, with his families friends. He was known to be violent to his family and friends. His brother Tommy shot his grandmother in 1978, causing a disturbance in the Atlas family’s life. Thomas Atlas is an inmate at NYS Prison at Marcy, N.Y. He was also arrested after beating his sister Meridith. By his own admission, Atlas had a somewhat troubled, rebellious youth. He dropped out of school and was arrested several times, once serving time on Riker’s Island. Atlas was involved in a street fight in which his face was severely slashed with a knife. The wound took four hundred stitches to close leaving him with a distinctive scar. Teddy enjoyed such attention. He is currently married to Elaine, where they have two children together, Teddy Jr and Nicole.
Career as a trainer
Teddy Atlas trained as an amateur boxer briefly with Hall of Fame trainer Cus D'Amato, but he was forced to retire after suffering a back injury. Atlas became an assistant to D'Amato, and he occasionally helped in the training of protege Mike Tyson. His relationship with Tyson ended after Tyson at the age of 15 had been sexually inappropriate with a 11 year old female relative of Atlas. Atlas put a .38 caliber handgun to Tysons ear and told him to never touch his family again or he would murder him.
Atlas enjoyed his greatest professional success as a head trainer with Michael Moorer. He also 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, and some felt he did these antics to draw attention to himself rather than help his fighter, during one such speech Atlas blocked Moorer from sitting on his stool and remarked "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. He also worked the corner of Featherweight world champion Barry McGuigan in one fight, trained Light-Heavyweight Donny Lalonde.
Lalonde 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." He and Atlas parted ways, and Lalonde hired Tommy Gallagher as his new trainer.
In 1997, he founded the Dr. Theodore Atlas Foundation to honor the memory of his late 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. Atlas confessed in the book that at one point he was so angry at Donny LaLonde he went to his home with a gun and a friend, to kill LaLonde for firing him as manager. Atlas states in his biography that he changed his mind at last minute.
On April 3, 2009 while covering the "Heavyweight Collision" card at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles California, featuring former WBC Heavyweight Champion Samuel Peter and IBF ranked Number 3 heavyweight "Fast" Eddie Chambers, Atlas revealed that he had been approached by Samuel Peter's team to take over as head trainer. Atlas went to Las Vegas where the Nigerian born Peter currently resides and spent a couple of days in the team, but did not take the job as he wanted Peter to relocate to New York where Atlas would have been able to train him full time.
In 2009, Atlas began training Russian heavyweight Alexander Povetkin as Povetkin prepared for an eventual title match against Wladimir Klitschko. Atlas set off a ruckus in January 2011, however, when he advised Povetkin to pull out of a title fight at the last moment, claiming his powerful promoter was too greedy and would have left his fighter with too little money. Atlas also verbally assaulted the promoter, calling him a "punk" who was protected by his family's money. Videos of Atlas' comments were posted briefly on the internet.
Sportscasting
Atlas worked as boxing commentator for NBC's coverage of the Olympic Games in Sydney (2000), Athens (2004) and Beijing (2008).
Atlas currently serves as commentator on ESPN2's Friday Night Fights and Wednesday Night Fights. In 2001, he won the Sam Taub Award for excellence in boxing broadcasting journalism., and was a contributor on the legendary fight doctor's Ferdie Pacheco's 12 Greatest Rounds of Boxing on DVD, on which he stated that in the first Ali-Liston fight 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. Atlas stated he would have refused to have cut Ali's gloves off and would have simply sent him out with the advice to just "run".
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, and accusing him 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 May 2008, Atlas did not appear in ESPN's Friday Night Fights broadcasts after his wife Elaine required major surgery in their native New York. Although he was able to do Wednesday night's fight, he decided not to do Friday Fight Night. This was mentioned in the broadcast by ESPN anchorman and temporary commentator for the night Brian Kenny who also stated that Atlas had been at his wife's bedside even sleeping by her side.
References
- Mike Tyson-Beyond the Glory (documentary film with interview of Atlas)
- Newman, Sean., Ringside Report Interviews Teddy Atlas, Ringsidereport.com, 2004-07-24, Retrieved on 2007-03-10.
- Teddy Atlas' Book Gives Full Details
- Medium Well: Your NBC Olympics lineup - A blog on sports media, news and networks - baltimoresun.com
- Internantional Boxing Hall of Fame / BWAA Awards
- Reeno, Rick (2008-01-25). "ESPN Suspends Teddy Atlas For One Week". BoxingScene.com. Retrieved 2008-01-26.
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External links
- Dr. Theodore Atlas Foundation
- Bio file interview profile with Teddy Atlas: www.BoxingInsider.com
- New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame profile
- Official Bio