LAS VEGAS — The central storyline of welterweight titleholder Timothy Bradley Jr.’s fight against Brandon Rios has been Bradley’s change of trainers.
Out is Joel Diaz, who had trained Bradley for his entire career but was fired in September. In is Teddy Atlas, the longtime ESPN analyst who came out of retirement when Bradley all but begged him to take him on with Atlas finally relenting after being asked several times and then spending a few days with Bradley and his family.
The fruits of their seven-week training camp will be on display Saturday night (HBO, 9:30 p.m. ET/PT) at the Thomas & Mack Center.
In the co-feature, featherweight titlist Vasyl Lomachenko (4-1, 2 KOs), 27, the two-time Olympic gold medalist from Ukraine, will make his third title defense when he faces Romulo Koasicha (25-4, 15 KOs), 24, of Mexico.
Bradley and Atlas agreed to work on a fight-by-fight basis. No long term commitments from either of them. But to hear them talk about how things went in training camp it is a match made in heaven with Bradley giving himself over to Atlas’ way of doing things, no questions asked.
Atlas’ goal was not so much to change Bradley but to get him to tighten up on defense and to better avoid the huge punches he has been cracked with in recent fights – to eliminate what Atlas calls “mortal sins.”
“I made a promise to myself and I made a promise to Teddy that we’re not just going to be tough. We’ll be tough mentally as well and be smart,” Bradley said. “Teddy’s been constantly drilling me about following the game plan and implementing good habits that will transfer to the ring. You drop your hands during training camp, I’m pretty sure you’ll drop them in the ring during the fight.
“You limit your mistakes. That’s what we’ve done. Teddy don’t skip a beat at all. He’s a teacher, a motivator, a great person. You can’t get better than Teddy.”
Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs), 32, of Palm Springs, California, decided to make the change even though he is coming off a June 27 decision win against Jessie Vargas to win a vacant title. But Bradley also got nailed in the 12th round and was in huge trouble when referee Pat Russell mistook the clapper signaling 10 seconds left in the round for the final bell and stopped the fight.
But Bradley said the relationship with Diaz had been going downhill and he wanted to make a change.
Atlas took his time to accept the job but when he did he threw himself into it.
“I spent three days with Tim where he lives before I made a decision. I got to be around him and in his home and the gym for a few days,” Atlas said. “I already knew that I had seen what I needed to see to say yes to this, which was a person I could be happy being around. A decent human being. I wasn’t coming back into this business. I have a pretty good gig in broadcasting. To come back into it, I wouldn’t do it if he wasn’t somebody I liked being around.
“I saw him as a family man and a good person and that was verified more in camp. You want to improve somebody. But you have to have somebody who is very willing to put their ego on the side and wants to learn and is willing to listen to whatever you tell ’em. The willingness has to be there and that was there. And you have to have someone who’s intelligent. He picked things up once I explained it to him and started to grasp the way to do it.”
Atlas said he was a little concerned about whether he would, as he said, be able to teach an old dog new tricks.
“Everything came together after like four weeks. I was amazed, Teddy was amazed. I picked up a lot of stuff. We had a great camp. You will see the best Tim Bradley you’ve seen in a long time.” Timothy Bradley Jr.
“If somebody’s smart and wants to learn I don’t care how long they’ve been doing it, they can learn,” Atlas said. “He’s made it easy for me. He’s done the hard work and implemented it into sparring. Now we have to execute it on Saturday night. I feel very good. You need somebody willing and intelligent and Timmy was both of those things. And you need the person to trust you. It’s a big responsibility because you don’t want to let the person down. That’s a lot of pressure.
“Given the way he’s responded and the kind of person he is, and his family is, I’m glad I came back, but the pressure is there.” Bradley, who has won five world titles between welterweight and junior welterweight, said Atlas has been exactly what he needed and is somebody he feels compelled to please.
“I have to say that in the beginning I was tad bit worried, not on Teddy’s part but on my part — could I learn anything he was showing me? I forced myself to stay focused all the way through,” Bradley said.
It wasn’t easy. Bradley said he did not feel entirely comfortable with Atlas’ way of doing things until about a month into training camp. But in the end, he said it was productive and happy camp, which he expects to translate against Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs), 29, of Oxnard, California, a former lightweight titleholder and one of boxing’s most crowd-pleasing fighters.
“Everything came together after like four weeks,” Bradley said. “I was amazed, Teddy was amazed. I picked up a lot of stuff. We had a great camp. You will see the best Tim Bradley you’ve seen in a long time.”
Atlas is known as a no-nonsense trainer, as much as a stickler for doing things a certain way as he is known for being superb at breaking down video, putting together and game plan and serving as a psychologist.
The camp he ran was like night and day compared the ones Bradley had with Diaz. Bradley and Diaz had enormous success with each other but Bradley said he quickly adjusted to Atlas’ rules and explained the differences between the two camps.
“A lot of rules in place,” Bradley said of an Atlas camp. “You better make sure your cell phone is off. That’s a huge difference. Joel was on the phone half of training camp. No music. Zero music in the gym and that’s great. We don’t use plastic (outfits) to (help) lose the weight. We lose it the right way. We do everything the right way.”
And another big difference?
“No one talks but Teddy,” Bradley said. “No one says anything but Teddy. At all. They follow directions. That’s what they do. Huge difference than a Joel Diaz training camp. And we had a 10 p.m. curfew.”
One of Bradley’s complaints about Diaz, a successful trainer with several fighters in his stable, was that he sometimes had to leave camp for a few days to work the corner of another of his fighters. With Atlas, he has his full attention, even when they aren’t in the gym. “He stays in contact with me as far as my diet, my running. It is boot camp,” Bradley said. “It’s the right way to be at a professional level. Huge difference in the camp.
“I was stuck in my ways but getting this new trainer did invigorate me and I wanted to learn more. I wanted to be a better fighter. My willingness to learn and listen to direction and me being really happy learning — I was eager every day to go to the gym, every single day. I know I’m going to learn something new today. Everyone is going to be amazed with how I look. You’ll be like holy crap — this is a whole different animal.” Rafael’s Boxing Blog
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The biggest thing Atlas worked with Bradley on was making sure he was in the right position and at the right distance to throw punches and also to make sure he didn’t leave himself open for a big shot.
“My first commitment was make sure we learned why he was getting hit with these big, clean punches and eliminate the reasons he was getting hit with them and I feel we’ve done that,” Atlas said. “He understands very clearly.”
So given how great they say the camp went it begs the question: How would Bradley’s career have looked has he been with Atlas from Day 1?
Bradley laughed at the question and took a minute to think about it.
“Man, I don’t know,” Bradley said, still laughing. “I can tell you this — I don’t know how my career would be different, but I can tell you that I would have definitely taken a lot less punches if I would have been with Teddy. I’d probably be the best fighter in the world right now.”
