Did Angelo Dundee, A Trainer With Magical Instincts, Create The Rope-A-Dope?
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
About 18 months ago, Hall of Fame boxing trainer Angelo Dundee died on my birthday, February 1, 2012. The losses of boxing luminaries like Dundee, Joe Frazier, Bert Sugar and Emanuel Steward literally mean the end of a boxing era as we know it. Their faces were like the reflection of the boxing ring itself, if you know what I mean.
During the past week, having converted my writing setup to utilize a new SSD Sata solid state drive with the new Windows 8 Operating System, with Microsoft Suite 2013, Microsoft Word 2013, and double saving my old document files to the new ‘Cloud’ cyberspace system, I came across some of my old data related to Mr. Dundee.
Angelo truly was a trainer of champions. He taught 15 overall I know of, including Ray Leonard, Jose Napoles, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, George Scott, Jimmy Ellis, Carmen Basilio, Luis Rodriguez, and Willie Pastrano. He traveled around the world and was cornerman for Ali in all but two of his fights. In one of them, he worked the corner for former World Heavyweight champion Jimmy Ellis against Ali.
Later, Dundee would deny loosening the ropes for Ali before the epic ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ with George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, sparking the creation of the ‘rope-a-dope’ technique. It appeared Dundee was able to tear a glove after Ali (then Cassius Clay) was knocked down near the bell of a round in his first bout with Henry Cooper-still as yet unproven, it allowed Clay extra time to recover while the glove was replaced. Dundee also worked with the likes of Trevor Berbick, Wilfredo Gomez, Pinklon Thomas, Sugar Ramos, Luis Rodriguez, Pinklon Thomas and Michael Nunn.
Dundee moved from Philadelphia to New York City and later Miami Beach as a bucket man to the great trainers, including Chickie Ferrera, Ray Arcel (Roberto Duran’s trainer) and Charlie Goldman (Rocky Marciano’s trainer).
For me, one big question has always loomed in the boxing historical time machine? Did Angelo Dundee loosen those ropes in Kinshasa before the bout to enable the rope-a-dope to be used by Ali? Jack Dempsey despised the rope-a-dope, proclaiming “That isn’t boxing!” But Archie Moore, ‘The Old Mongoose’, trainer in the corner of George Foreman, clarifying later “It would not have matter, because Ali simply would have gone into his bag of tricks and pulled out something else.”
To date, no sportsman has mastered the art of psychological warfare and the rope-a-dope better than Muhammad Ali. Perhaps the late chess champion Bobby Fischer also had some psychological warfare concepts on par with Ali at the height of his career. Was it ring coincidence or was the rope-a-dope an intentional act? We’ll never know. This particular secret the great Angelo Dundee took to the grave last year. All we can do is wonder, folks.
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