ANGELO Dundee, who died on Wednesday aged 90, never boxed himself, but became the most famous cornerman in the world as the trainer of Muhammad Ali.
Hired to train the then 18-year-old Cassius Clay soon after the young Kentuckian's gold medal triumph at the 1960 Rome Olympics, Dundee remained continually at Ali's side right up until his crushing, one-sided defeat by the rising Larry Holmes on October 2, 1980.
Dundee's association with Ali tended to obscure the rest of what was a remarkable curriculum vitae: he worked with 15 other world champions, among them Sugar Ray Leonard, Jose Napoles, George Foreman, Jimmy Ellis, Carmen Basilio and Luis Rodriguez.
Explaining his role, he once reflected: "When you're working with a fighter, you're a surgeon, an engineer and a psychologist."
Despite coming across as a fast-talking hustler, Dundee had a reputation as one of the kindest men in boxing.
Dundee was born Angelo Merena on August 30, 1921 in Philadelphia. Growing up in a tough area of the city, he quickly became streetwise. "Philadelphia is not a town, it's a jungle," he once recalled. "They don't have gyms there, they have zoos. They don't have sparring sessions, they have wars."
He served with US Air Force in the Second World War, by which time he had changed his name.
His brother Joe fought professionally as Joe Dundee, and Angelo followed suit. The moniker was a tribute to former featherweight champion Johnny Dundee.
During the war, Dundee spent time on air bases in England.
He gained experience as a cornerman during military boxing tournaments before, at war's end, heading to New York, where he learned the finer point of boxing science while working as a "bucket guy" at Stillman's Gym.
Dundee first came across Ali in 1957, when the 15-year-old newly crowned Golden Gloves champion of Louisville rang him and, after announcing he was going to become an Olympic and world heavyweight champion, asked to come up to Dundee's hotel room to meet him.
"I thought there was some nut on the line," the trainer remembered.
He later supervised a sparring session Clay had with world light-heavyweight champion Willie Pastrano and, in December 1960, trainer and fighter teamed up together at the Fifth Street Gym.
Eight days later, Clay knocked out Herb Siler in the fourth round of what was only his second professional fight.
"No matter what happened after that, [Angelo] was always my friend. He was there when I needed him and he always treated me with respect," Ali said. Dundee would later recall the fun of those early days and how training Ali was a totally different proposition to working with other fighters: "It was like jet propulsion - just touch him and he took off."
Dundee travelled the world with Ali, and was in the corner for his fights against Floyd Patterson; the famous trilogy of bouts against Joe Frazier; "The Rumble In The Jungle" against George Foreman; and for his rare defeats against Ken Norton and, later, Leon Spinks.
After Ali's retirement, Dundee saw an emerging star in Sugar Ray Leonard, whom he described as "a smaller version of Ali".
He acted as cornerman for Leonard in many of his biggest fights, including those with Wilfred Benítez, Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns.
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