Teddy Atlas is a prominent boxing analyst who cut his teeth from the other side as a once world-class trainer.
Famously, Atlas was coached by the late great Cus D’Amato who was known for working with legends of the sport such as a young Mike Tyson and the supremely talented Wilfred Benitez.
His work in the sport earned him an induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame many years after hanging up the gloves himself due to back problems, though not before winning the 1976 Adirondack Golden Gloves title.
It was as a trainer that he excelled, however, not least with American-born Puerto Rican Benitez who won his first light welterweight world title aged just 17 and picked up two more in the welterweight and light middleweight divisions.
Speaking to The Ring Magazine, Atlas lavished praise on Benitez whose record he thinks will never be equal.
“You could call him a protege. The youngest fighter to ever win a world title. That record will never be eclipsed. When you think about the enormity of it, it’s mind-boggling. He won a world title when he was 17 years old. What do kids do at 17? They’re not winning world titles against great fighters like Antonio Cervantes.”
He then admitted that it was coaching that helped Benitez realise his talent, but that another young, soon-to-be world champion Mike Tyson impressed him right from the off.
“[Benitez] was definitely the most complete package and most gifted guy I had worked with but it had been developed. As far as most pure, God-given talent, raw, from the earliest stage that you saw, it would have to be a 12-year-old Tyson, who was 190 pounds but no fat.”
Benitez retired aged 32 after losing two of his last four fights. Although Tyson hung up the gloves more than 20 years after losing two fights back-to-back, he will fight again in November when he takes on Jake Paul across eight two-minute rounds.
