Speaking exclusively with Slingo, Mike Tyson's first coach turned boxing commentator Teddy Atlas has warned Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury not to make the same mistake as Muhammad Ali.
Atlas has also tipped Terence Crawford to beat ‘overrated’ Canelo in their superfight in September while telling Oleksandr Usyk to retire from the sport.
Additionally, Atlas has told Jake Paul that he could earn himself a world title fight by beating Julio Cesar Chavez Jr next month.
My knee collapsed in Saudi Arabia and they offered to cover the the costs of surgery
When I was over in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - when they asked me to come over there for the fights, they also asked me to go to the gym. They started a boxing program in Riyadh and they had young kids in the gym.
They asked me if I'd go and give a couple lessons to the kids and talk to the kids. Next thing I know, I hear a pop and have completely torn my MCL and ACL, but of course I had given my word to the kids that I would train them for. I'm dedicated. I'm just not smart.
So I gave him a promise that I would train them for two hours and I was only 15 minutes into it, and I had just given him this very strong speech about how the mind is stronger than the body, and that mind is the general, and the body is the soldier. The body must always follow the general, and here I am with my leg collapsed on me.
I don't think the surgeon really appreciated that [I finished the two hour session] when I finally got back to New York to get surgery and I'm still rehabbing it.
They were concerned about blood clots, and so they wanted to have their [Saudi] surgeons do the surgery. They were going to pick up all the costs and have me stay there until I was stable. But we got the medications we needed to fly.
Vasiliy Lomachenko has inspired me to train one more world champion ‘i’dlove one more shot’
I was so happy for Lomachenko that he was able to, at this point in his life, win the title again against George Kambosos. And to have his son there and old enough to appreciate it, and to have his father there, and have his grandson there - that really touched me, and I'd be lying to you if it hasn't been on my mind once in a while since I saw that.
I actually said a prayer. I said, ‘God, if you have anything else in store for me in this boxing business here, I'd love to have one more shot and have my grandkids be able to experience it and share it with me and my children’.
I already had my children. It was a great blessing. I'll never forget it, and I'll be grateful for it forever. But if I could have what Mr. Lomachenko had, and I'm so happy for him, but If I could just have one more and have the grandkids there, that would be pretty cool.
Could you imagine? You win a world title. You got your kids, you got your grandkids there.
Francis Ngannou is the type of fighter I’d like to train
I found Francis Ngannou to be very smart, obviously very physical; very gifted, very big, very strong, and he was born with power. He's athletic and he was very smart,
They reached out to me about potentially training him for the Tyson Fury fight and it didn't work out. We didn't get together, but he's a guy that is intelligent. You have to have somebody who has a form of intelligence. They didn't have to go to college, they didn't have to go to school. But they have to be intelligent and they have to want to learn. The ego has to be in check.
So Ngannou was the kind of guy who physically had gifts and he's intelligent. Teachers, you look for something to teach. Sculptors want a good piece of clay that you can move and mold into something special, and a part of that is having the kind of talent that Ngannou has, and the kind of intelligence that he brings with it.
It’s going to ‘blow your mind’ - but the heavyweight I really wanted was Joe Joyce
Obviously, you want to hear one that's gonna blow your mind. Years ago I would have loved to have the opportunity, way too late now, but I would have loved to have the opportunity to train Joe Joyce.
Yeah, he was slow footed. We would have worked on that. He is predictable. He got hit too much. Yes, but give him to me. Give him to me because I'm looking at the other parts. He had a hell of a chin back then, he could punch, he was tough. He believed in himself.
Like I said, he gets hit too much. He's predictable. He's slow footed. Give me that. When can I get to work? When can I start?
Mike Tyson’s bullies caused him life long insecurities
Mike Tyson talked about how he would hide in between the walls of a vacant building to avoid bullies, to be protected from them, to be shielded from whatever they did to him.
He would hide in between these walls in a vacant building. I thought that in some ways
he never fully escaped those walls. In some ways, you never fully get out from those walls.
There's a part of you that gets left in the way you feel about yourself, to go into a wall to hide from something - you know what that does to your inner being?
I don't know if that ever leaves you completely - those insecurities that are born from that and are caused by that, because he had plenty of his securities. We all do.
And he was a fighter on top of it, wherecan't show those insecurities, those inhibitions.
Or if you do, they show up in a very damaging way. If you're in a business of boxing in any business, they will show up in a very graphic way.
I hope Manny Pacquiao is not fighting for money
I hope Manny Pacquiao is not fighting for money because the great Manny Pacquiao with all the greatness in his life and everything he'saccomplished and done in the ring outside the ring, for his people, for the Filipino people, for the world, for the audience, the boxing fans.
For all that he's done - it would be unfair to have him now, at this point in his life, to be having to fight for money.
I have no problem with him jumping the line out of the respect for what he's done, the problem is where he is in his life physically and what that really means, and what it can mean, and the damage he can do to a sport he obviously loves if God forbid something could happen to Manny Pacquiao at this point, because of the things that I think we're honestly talking about.
Jake Paul will create an argument to fight for a world title if he beats Julio Cesar Chavez Jr
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr was a world champion. There's legitimacy somewhere in that and they hope that's enough to do two things. There's a back end and a front end to this fight.
The first part of it is to make the event successful, make money for the promotion and then, of course, it's really to get access to what you're talking about.
To maybe a world title fight, to have something to base an argument on. You can always have an argument. You can't always win it. But you can always create an argument. And that's what these promoters do.
That's what they do, they create an argument and we'll see if they can win the argument, not in the court of law, but the court of the people, and you know what, I wouldn't bet against them.
Chavez Jr won a world title, but also was the guy that was smoking pot and had a problem with drinking and had a problem with his lifestyle, a guy that didn't fight and hasn't fought for years has been inactive. I don't think [Chavez Jr poses any threat to Paul].
I don’t want to see Conor Benn - Chris Eubank Jr rematch after ‘magical’ fight
Those guys never went to that place before, they needed each other to bring them there, to prove they weren't just using their father's name.
Whatever it was, they needed something to find out if they could go to a place that they had never been before. They never fought like that - and I don't know if they can again.
I almost don't want to see the rematch because it was that good. Because there were special things at work, special magical things at work. They proved their worth, they proved they were more than just a thought up thing because their fathers were famous.
Weight won’t be the deciding factor when Islam Makhachev faces Jack Della Maddalena
If Islam Makhachev loses to Jack Della Maddalena, I think it’ll be because Jack was able to force it into being more of a striking fight than anything else. And his takedown defense was good enough, like it was in his last fight, the one he won the title with.
If he can fight his fight—he’svery good at striking. And as the taller man, if he can control that geography, that gives him an edge to use his physical attributes in those ways. If he can fight that fight, I don’t think weight will come into play.
It’ll come down to what I just talked about, the greatness inside the guy. The mental ability to fight their fight. The mental endurance and constitution to get through what they have to get through, which is what these guys always do. They always find a way. The great ones find a way.
Jon Jones is holding the heavyweight title ‘hostage’
Jon Jones has been inactive in spots in his career. There's no doubt about it. And you could say, well, now you are keeping the title hostage. Yeah, I'll use a strong word, becausethat's where you're going. And again, I think there's two different things here.
One is personally as a competitor, as a champion. That word invokes more than just the ability to fight. It invokes how you behave, how you carry yourself, what you believe in.
And he's a champion. I believe he's a real champion. He always has been. He always behaves like one, so I think that you do have a personal obligation to [behave like a champion and ] kind of deal with that.
Then [you have to] deal with what comes with being a champion - you gotta give someone else a chance to get what you had a chance to get within a certain period.
But then comes the other thing. What are the rules? What are the enforcements? What are the mechanisms in place in this sport, in this business?
What are the rules and are they being enforced? And if they're not being enforced. And they're not being obliged by. They're not being lived up to, or, paid attention to.
Then you know what the repercussions are. There has to be an enforcement part of those rules. You can't have rules if there's no enforcement of those rules, I mean, what's the sense of having rules?
I would think that a guy who's been that successful that's done it his way has done it step by step. He didn't rush into anything.
To make sure everything was in place to make sure when he opened the doors, people were gonna come and stay, not come and leave. I think that's probably part of it.
I would guess that when he'sgonna do his first foray into boxing, everyone's gonna be looking, and I think that heprobably wants to make sure that he knows what foot he's stepping in there with.
And that it's his best step, his best foot, I know that, most people say ‘but hey Crawford-Canelo, it doesn't get bigger’ but that doesn't mean that it's comfortable for him. That doesn't mean that a guy who again has this reputation in his sport.
I'm sure he has ideas of what he wants in place before he has his coming out party, I'm sure that he's thinking all right. I need other things in place down the road for my venture into boxing to be successful beyond one big night.
My warning to Patrice Evra - you better get the right opponent
I hope Patrica Evra got the right opponent. I'm not kidding, but I'm serious, at 44 years old, coming from soccer. I'm sure he's a great athlete. But to go into MMA . You have the right opponent.
I could get a guy down the street who's driving an ice cream truck. I could get him a fight, and he [Evra] would be successful not because ice cream made him a great fighter, but because I would get the right opponent.
I don't know much about this guy other than what you just laid out, but I can guarantee you he better get the right opponent.
Joshua and Fury should not make the same mistake as Muhammad Ali
I am not one of these guys saying, I gotta see Anthony Joshua vs Tyson Fury. They're already in the twilight of their career. I want to see them healthy.
I want them to walk up to the sunset and do what they earned the right to do, live a good life with their family and enjoy the spoils of victory of their hard work.
I've seen enough guys so we all have stayed too long. Whether it was Joe Lewis or Muhammad Ali, those are some of the greatest and they stayed too long.
I want to see a good ending to a great boxing movie, I want to see him walk off at the right time but listen. It's their choice. I want Tyson Fury to do what Tyson Fury needs to do, to feel right, to be complete because you earned the right
Conor McGregor was pioneer like Muhammad Ali
Conor McGregor has earned the right to come back because he was a pioneer in the UFC, there'snot many pioneers out there. When you're a pioneer you deserve the right to call it a day when you call it a day, you deserve the right to be given more leeway than someone else.
There's a guy that was a pioneer in making people money, a lot like Muhammad Ali. When Ali, with boxing, started making more money, he broke that barrier. In the UFC people started making more money when Conor McGregor came along and he broke that barrier, and people are benefiting.
Fighters are benefiting from it, and aside from that, he was maybe the greatest promoter we ever saw, one of the greatest promoters we ever saw. But he was a hell of a fighter.
I’d be concerned about Deontay Wilder fighting again
The last thing to go, George Foreman showed, is that, the last thing to go with a fighter is power. As long as you have power, you’ve got a shot. But the way he’s looked, the punishment he took against Zhilei Zhang.
Wilder took a lot of punishment in his last few fights. And the way he took it, how clean he got hit, and how he reacted to it, just as a human being, forget trainer, promoter, anything, just as a human being, I’d be concerned about him fighting again.
Terence Crawford beats ‘overrated’ Canelo
Like Marvin Hagler said to me one time, “Teddy, it’s hard to get up and do roadwork at five in the morning when you’ve been sleeping in silk sheets.” The great Marvin Hagler, he was right.
Did Canelo not fight with urgency because he’s made so much money? That’s a possibility. Maybe. Here’s a tough one, his is where they kill me: Was he overrated?
Did we overrate him? He’s a hell of a fighter. He’s a damn good fighter. But you know, if you look at it with a microscope I thought he lost the first Triple G fight. I thought he lost the second one - okay, that was different, closer. I thought he might have lost to Erislandy Lara, actually.
He lost to Mayweather. He's beaten a lot of guys, like everyone has, but he’s beaten a lot of guys where he was the bigger man, where he had the right to kind of pick who he wanted because he brought the money.
He has that right. He’s the pay-per-view king. He had the right to pick guys who maybe had to fight him, who were smaller or older, because that’s how they were going to make the money.
Was he a little overrated? I don’t know. But I think he’s a heck of a fighter. He’s got a heck of a legacy.
I still stick with my pick. I’m picking Crawford, like I did before this fight. I’m picking Crawford to win, even being, obviously, the smaller man.
Oleksandr Usyk should retire not fight Daniel Dubois - I don’t like to see bad endings to careers
I’d like to see Oleksandr Usyk walk off into the sunset. I know he's going to fight Daniel Dubois and that's going to be a much more dangerous fight because Dubois has found himself, he redeemed himself, he believes in himself.
He knows he can depend on himself, that makes him a dangerous guy. Before he was dangerous if you got into the sight of a big bazooka and you got hit by it.
But other than that you were going to be someone people say he didn't have the heart - I didn't believe that. He just hadn't found himself. He didn't know he had that heart. And now that he knows, with his size and power, he'svery dangerous now.
I'm not saying Usyk won't beat him again, because I never bet against that guy because he knows how to win.
His greatest asset is finding a way to win,that's an ability like a jab or power. I would not bet against Usyk but I don't want to see bad endings in my sport that I've been in for fifty years.
I would love to see Usyk walk off into the sunset because he's got to be on the list of greatest heavyweights of all time. Let him go off to the sunset now, but he wants to fight Dubious.
