THE GREATEST BOXING TRAINER YOU NEVER HEARD OF
By Thornell Johnson
Dundee. Futch. D'Amato. Steward. These are just a few of the many names tossed around in boxing circle debates about the greatest boxing trainers. In writing this article I began to ask myself "What would qualify a person to be the greatest boxing trainer?" I came up with a criteria. The trainer would have to have a high degree of success with his fighters of course. He would bring the best out of an ordinary fighter and make him better. Not only would he have had a great deal in training world champions, but making them. It's easy for a trainer to be labled as great if they worked the corners of Ali, Leonard, Frazier, Lewis. But what about the trainer who takes an average joe and makes him a trainer? What about the trainer who has taken a LOT of regular joes and made them champions? Would that be more of a reflection of a great trainer as opposed to a trainer having great fighters? Well I have run into one such trainer who a strong argument can be made for. The problem is, you maybe have never heard of him. Soft spoken, mild mannered Adrian Davis, the genius behind Round 1 Fitness Center in Brentwood, Maryland just may be the greatest boxing trainer you never heard of. With 14 world champions under his belt including former world champion Hasim Rahman (who's corner he was in when he knocked out Lennox Lewis), AD, as he is affectionately called in his gym, is the prototype of trainer I described earlier. I sat down for an interview with him in his gym and talked about his life as a fighter and now as one of the best trainers in the world.
TJ: How long have you been in boxing?
A.D: Since 1959, I started off as a fighter at 15 years old.
TJ: What was your amateur record?
AD: I had 89 fights and I lost 6
TJ: when did you turn pro?
AD: September 1965.
TJ: how long did you fight?
AD: until 1972.
TJ: After you finished fighting did you immediately start training fighters?
AD: nah I really was so messed up in the head about boxing because I got a black eye because I trained everyday from 1959 to 1972, and I never missed more than 2 weeks out of the gym in all that time. December 5 was my last fight in 1972. I was really bent up about boxing because I had no titles, no big recognition and I was about to lose my mind. My eye was messed up and I went to three doctors in the United States because my eye was messed up. The surgeries were all unsuccessful
TJ: Well you didn’t immediately start training fighters. What made you go into training fighters?
AD: Well a man name John McDonald heard about me. He heard about how I was helping people, giving money away to the hospitals even though I didn’t really have it. I thought I would have it, but I always found myself helping others. He heard about me and tried to help me get a job with the MD Department of Recreation.
TJ: From there you went on to train fighters?
AD: Not right away. One of the guys I was working for was in charge of trying to put activities into the community center to help the community, and at that time Sugar Ray Leonard was gaining popularity as a local amateur and everyone was going over to The Palmer Park where he was training. So we started a boxing program over at the Bowie Community Center. We started that boxing program and it just took off. It became the second best boxing gym in the area second only to Palmer Park because the great Sugar Ray Leonard trained there.
TJ: You trained quite a few notable fighters and a few champions. How many champions have you trained to win titles?
AD: I’ve trained 14 world champions
TJ: give us some names
AD: Simon Brown, Maurice Blocker, William Joppy, Sharmba Mitchell, Keith Holmes, Hasim Rahman, Sugar Ray Leonard, William Gautrey, Shannon Briggs, Erik Aiken, Johnny Tapia, Donovon Ruddick,
TJ: Who was the best fighter that you worked with?
AD: It would have to be Sugar Ray Leonard (whom he trained for the Camacho fight). The other guy would have to be Sharmba Mitchell despite the fact I’ve had problems with Sharmba, but he was a kid I’ve trained since he first started boxing who never lost a professional fight with me. He lost some professional fights, but not with me. He was 29-0 when he left me. He had a few fights, came back, won some more fights, then left again.
TJ: So how long have you been running your gym, Round 1?
AD: I have been running this gym since February 4th, 1980
TJ: How many of the fighters that you have trained as world champions or to win world championships are you still in contact with?
AD: That’s a mysterious question you asked me. As nice as I have treated everyone, nobody has a bad thing to say about me. I’ve never cursed them. They’ve never heard me curse. I am a so-called perfect coach. They never come back to support the gym.
TJ: So with all these fighters you have helped achieve greatness, none of them come back and give back. The gym is basically run off the memberships of your everyday patron of the gym?
AD: Hasim Rahman for example. He paid me 10% for small fights. We argued one time and he told me “I gave you 10% but we weren’t under a contract”.
TJ: Well since we are changing subjects, which Hasim Rahman fight where he made a large amount of money and didn't pay you your trainers fee?
AD: It was a dirty trick man and I want this to get back to Hasim Rahman. We were in the Catskill mountains to train for a fight. The opportunity to fight Lennox Lewis fight came up. Steve Nelson and his other manager came and they wanted to talk to Hasim. I told them he cant talk he is training. Steve got me on the phone and he told me he had to talk to him. They came down and everyone was happy at the announcement we got a fight with Lennox Lewis. The money jumped from $100k to $1.5 million. His manager pulled me to the side and asked me to take a cut. They told me if he won this fight, he would take care of me in the next fight.
TJ: So he goes to and knocks Lewis out…
AD: Hasim Rahman is the undisputed champion of the world. You never saw me cause I was on my knees in the ring crying. Hasim gives me $10k because he got the knockout. They sat me down again and told me I was supposed to get $150k for the fight, but they promised me $50k, but they were short $5k. All I got for the first fight was $45k. Hasim Rahman is getting money from Don King, HBO, and he gives me another $5k.
TJ: $5k isn’t a lot of money when he is getting all this up front money from Don King and HBO.
AD: I didn’t care. I just wanted my money off the next fight. So he fights Lewis the next time and gets knocked out. But this time he got paid $12.5 million dollars and he paid me $500k.
TJ: So why did he lose?
AD: it got to the point where I couldn’t get his attention. He had money galore, houses galore, vegas galore, he didn’t want to train. I just couldn’t control him. All he wanted to do was play dominos and talk on the phone. He didn’t want to run or do nothing.
TJ: So you are going on the record and saying the reason Hasim Rahman lost wasn’t do to bad instruction in the corner, but his lack of focus and training during camp for the rematch? He has said in the interviews I have read that you weren’t getting along in camp, but he kept you around because you had already been paid.
AD: this is the truth. But Hasim would not follow instructions. Hasim would sit and talk about all the stuff he did for me. He would say I was the only trainer to beat Lennox Lewis with Emanuel Steward. Crazy stuff like that.
TJ: Well Hasim has gone on the record and said he didn’t want to have anything to do with you after that fight. But the fact is you were in his corner for a few fights after that correct?
AD: I actually trained him for 3 fights after that
TJ: Well since he left you, with the exception of being awarded the WBC heavyweight title, he really hasn’t had that much success.
AD: No. I wasn’t the kind of coach then and now who would do anything but project good things to my fighters. I have never stolen from them, most if not all of them still owe me money.
TJ: You’ve never really had a policy of putting fighters under contract?
AD: I’m a so-called fighters dream. I don’t put fighters under contract and that’s how Hasim beat me.
TJ: Well shifting gears, let’s talk about Round 1. Round 1 has been in different locations since it opened?
AD: it’s been in 8 different locations. Unfortunately throughout the years, at my last location for example, I was evicted. I invest so much time in my fighters and I am not really demanding these kids that come in here to get off the street and out of trouble to pay gym dues when many of them cant.
TJ: have any of these past champions reached out to help you with the gym in some way?
AD: Nah. A fighter like Simon Brown was a world champion who made money, but didn’t have money. I mean some of them received big paydays, but you cant retire off that kind of money
TJ: But a fighter like Hasim Rahman has that kind of money.
AD: I had a lawyer on Hasim Rahman to get me my money back. And we went to court in NJ. We came outside of courtroom and Hasim was upset saying I wasn’t gonna win. He was mentioning that we were both muslims and I promised him I would never take him to court. But I was trying to get money I worked hard to help him get. So I shook his hand and told him I was dropping the case. My lawyer was mad as hell. I thought he would come back in good faith and pay me something, but he never gave me another dime.
Stay tuned for Part 2 to this interview
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