Tim Bradley to be trained by Teddy Atlas

By Boxing News - 09/11/2015 - Comments

atlasBy Allan Fox: ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas will be taking over as the trainer for WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs) to get him ready for his first title defense on November 7th against former WBA lightweight champion Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios (33-2-1, 24 Kos) for a fight that will be televised on HBO Championship Boxing from the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Atlas has a lot of experience in the past as a trainer. He recently trained former WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin several years ago. However, it’s unknown how much Bradley has left of untapped potential that the 59-year-old Atlas can bring out.

Atlas is a good trainer, but he’s not a miracle worker. He’s not going to be able to turn Bradley into a puncher or develop his nonexistent punching power in any way. Bradley will still be just as vulnerable as he’s always been when he’s put in with someone with punching power.

Bradley recently let go his long time trainer Joel Diaz, who had been by his side since he turned pro in 2004.

Bradley is going to need to get used to the arguably more forceful way that Atlas trains. It’s likely going to be a much different situation for Bradley compared to how he was previously trained by Diaz. Bradley will need to make some adjustments mentally and physically in dealing with Atlas’s personality and his way of training.

Atlas definitely will want to be the captain of the ship when it comes to training. It’ll be interesting to see how long this relationship will last. Bradley is a pretty forceful person himself, and if the two of them bump heads over things, Bradley will likely need to be the one to give in.

At 32, Bradley is pretty far along in his career to be changing trainers. I’m not sure if this is something that will bring anything extra out of Bradley. He’s probably as good as he’s ever going to be at this point in his career.

Atlas can train Bradley to get him ready for guys like Rios, Jessie Vargas and Sadam Ali, but I don’t think Atlas is going to be able to help Bradley beat the top fighters like Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Amir Khan, Kell Brook and Marcos Maidana.

Bradley’s lack of punching power will cause him to probably lose all of those fights. We saw how Bradley struggled recently when matched against Diego Chaves, Manny Pacquiao and Ruslan Provodnikov. When Bradley is matched against fighters with weak to moderate punching power, he does well. But when he faces guys that have significant power, he struggles badly.

The good news for Bradley is he won’t be fighting the likes of Maidana, Khan, Porter or Danny Garcia, because he’s with Top Rank, and those are fighters signed on with Al Haymon. But we will see Bradley face Rios and Sadam Ali. If he can win those fights, then we might see Bradley facing Top Rank fighter Terence Crawford in the near future.

As an amateur fighter, Atlas was trained by the late great trainer Cus D’Amato. Atlas went from fighting to training after injuring his back. Atlas became an assistant trainer under D’Amato, and he assisted in training former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Atlas would later train former heavyweight champion Michael Moorer. Atlas also briefly trained Barry McGuigan and Donny Lalonde.

Atlas has worked as a sportscaster beginning in 2000. He’s done an excellent job in working with ESPN.



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