Fighter's Mind, A Read Online Free PDF

feel.
    “Breaking somebody is the goal. You get him to quit trying to win, he tries to survive. It’s there a lot, but often people don’t see it. You have to have done it quite a few times or you’ll miss the key point, because he can come back,” Dan warns me. “Once he shows signs of breaking, if you don’t take advantage, there’s a chance of him coming back. So keep pressure on at all times.”
    Then Dan laughs a little. “But there’s a catch-22. It’s not as black and white as black and white. Sometimes you shouldn’t attack to win, and it’s hard to have both instincts. For the Owings match, I couldn’t have understood it without going through it. But then I had the instinct in the Olympics. And I used it to eliminate the chance of losing, pretty much.”
     
    The Gable museum had a viewing room where an ESPN special on Gable was shown. It was a basic overview. His triumphs were documented, his tragedies more so. There was a fascinating blurb by some talking head, saying, “As Dan got more famous, as he became known to more and more people, his focus was all the time becoming narrower, more purely about wrestling.” Gable had won gold at the ’72 Olympics in Munich, without a single point scored against him, one of the dominant performances in sporting history. Three days later, Munich descended into tragedy, with terrorist attacks, the hostage crisis, and the eventual deaths of the Israeli athletes. When Gable got off the plane back in the United States, a reporter shoved a camera in his face and asked him about the atmosphere in Munich. Dan responded lightly, that the weather was about the same as it was here. He was embarrassed when he realized his mistake, but Dan Gable’s world had shrunk to himself and wrestling, to the head of pin.

THE CHOIRBOY
     

    Freddie Roach.
    © Miguel Salazar

    What usually wins fights is not so much style as content.
    —A. J. Liebling
     
     
    Wild Card Gym is on the corner of Vine and Santa Monica, in a part of Hollywood that has resisted gentrification; it’s still a rough neighborhood, at least at night. Although Freddie Roach, the owner, recently expanded, the gym is small for its massive reputation. During midday it’s crowded to the point where you’re actually stepping on people’s toes. Freddie is there almost every day, unless called away to help some world-famous fighter figure out his next opponent.
    Freddie Roach is a boxing trainer, a Hall of Famer, and Trainer of the Year in 2003, 2006, 2007, and 2008. He’s coached a “who’s who” of boxers in his career, from Manny Pacquiao and James Toney to Mike Tyson. Oscar de la Hoya hired him to train for Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the hardest-hyped “superfight” in the past ten years. Freddie’s considered one of the two or three best trainers in boxing and is frequently called in to troubleshoot career-defining fights for big-name fighters. He’s a superstar. The walls of Wild Card Gym are covered with old fight posters and pictures of Freddie and his brother with champions, ex-champions, and celebrities. The timer dings and holds sway, marching through the day, like a flashing red-eyed idol.
    A boxing trainer’s link to his fighter is more intense, more mutually dependent, than any other coaching relationship in sports. It is private, one on one, the trainer focused with his whole being on the fighter. It’s a long relationship, built over years, thousands of hours in the gym, day in and day out. Trainer and fighter are closer than family, and there are many father-son teams out there. The fighter is something of an extension of the trainer; often trainers will use the royal “we” as in “when we had to fight so-and-so,” but only the fighter is in the ring. This is a relationship under dire stress. The consequences are severe, money is short. This is a hurt business.
    Freddie Roach isn’t a big guy, only five-foot-five with short, Irish red hair, myopic-thick glasses, and pale, freckled