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By Andrew Wake: If Tim Coleman has learnt even the slightest amount from the fighters he’s faced in sparring then that alone should be enough to make him a world class fighter in his own right.
The 25-year-old native of Baltimore, Maryland has enjoyed training camps with Ricky Hatton, Joan Guzman and Oscar De La Hoya to name but a few and each experience has helped him hone the skills he feels will take him the pinnacle of the 140 pound weight class.
But it’s the years he spent in Las Vegas with working with various members of the Mayweather clan that he says taught him the most.
“I was in gym with them when I was a kid, even when I didn’t train with Roger or big Floyd, I was always around them,” Coleman, 17 – 1 – 1 (4 KOs), recalled. “I hung out with Floyd Jnr as a kid and chasing around a future world champion was pretty cool.
“Boxing Floyd was always an honour. I think he has the fastest hands in the business and being around him taught me a lot. He’s like superman, he never stops training and is always in shape.”
All the hours of toil paid off for Coleman last December when he overcome the odds to defeat veteran Greek-born New Yorker Mike Arnaoutis by split decision to take home the vacant USBA light-welterweight title.
It was a victory that pushes Tim into the top fifteen of the IBF rankings and should serve as the springboard for going onto bigger and better things.
“I sure felt I was underdog going into that fight with Arnaoutis because it was in his back yard and it was his promoter, but I felt it was a fight I would have to take to get up in the rankings,” he said.
“It was something I got short notice for but I went in there, did what I had to do and won a close decision. It felt great to win a title.”
Coleman’s next move was to up sticks and relocate to the UK so that he could spend more time with Manchester-based trainer Lee Beard.
Despite enjoying his time in Europe, homesickness soon kicked in and he returned to the States last month to begin working under the stewardship of Calvin Ford in his home city.
“I really wanted to stay out there because I really wanted to work for Lee,” Coleman said of his time in England. “But it was pretty hard for me being so far away from home and it wasn’t like I was going to get any fights in the UK so I couldn’t see the point in staying out there.
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