I only wrote 748 glowing items about him in The New York Post and in boxing magazines when he was trying to make his "bones" in the fight game.
I didn't pump Atlas' profile up because we're related, I did it because he was colorful, quotable and because the Legendary Johnny Bos was his publicity rabbi so to speak.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the years, Atlas lost Bos' phone number.
When Atlas got canned by Donny Lalonde, later to fight and deck Sugar Ray Leonard and pick up a neat $5 million purse, the trainer was livid.
He came up with a classic line about the "suicide blond" Lalonde and the late, great manager and writer (he penned the superb Connie Hawkins' basketball book, "Foul") Dave Wolf. Wolf may have sometimes walked on a rug but he always wore one.
"One dyes it," Atlas cracked, "and the other one buys it."
But Atlas becomes an insufferable blowhard on any topic involving Manny Pacquiao.
Look, I'm not saying Pacman is beyond criticism not by any means. But how about valid, sensible criticism?
The ESPN shouter has an axe to grind against the Pinoy Idol and I don't know why.
Maybe Theodore blames Manny because that he's never been able to produce that "mystery emaill" in which he reported someone representing Pacman asked what would happen if he came up dirty on a random blood testing for a super bout against Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Neither has another good New York boxing guy, Daily News scribe Tim Smith on whose coattails Atlas rode on that story.
Someone asked Atlas if he would apologize about that story and he petulantly told the reporter "to get an apology from Smith first."
It may be revealed at some future time that Pacman has been loaded to the gills with illergal drugs, that his marvelous feats were all chemically induced.
I kind of doubt it but I would not go into any Sugar Shane shock over such bad news.
But it will never be revealed that anyone representing Manny sent such an email to Mayweather's reps because it never transpired.
I'm not questioning Atlas' boxing IQ as he is usually pretty sharp.
He's been a student of the game for a long while going back to his Cus D'Amato understudy days in Catskill, when Michael Tyson was barely a teenager.
In fact, I hired Atlas when he needed a boost. I brought him in to train hevyweight hopeful Shannon Briggs when the Brooklyn fighter was turning pro. Briggs had great talent but a lack of discipline and he agreed with me that Drill Sargeant Atlas would put a boot up his backside. Keep in mind Briggs was about 19 then but acted like he was 12.
No wonder Shannon and I clicked immediately, lol, we had the same emotional maturity.
I convinced my co-manager Marc Roberts to give Atlas a contract, a rarity for trainers then and now, a salary and lease him a car.
Atlas was a solid trainer then and is one now.
But, when it comes to Pacman, Atlas seems to work off a personal agenda.
First, he was lambasting me for having the audacity to question his reportorial skills and now he is saying that Pacquiao got hit too much, too easily by the bigger, stronger Joshua Clottey.
Did Atlas expect the phenomenal Pacquiao to pitch a no-hitter for 36 minutes?
His observations about those six or seven crooked left uppercuts that Clottey landed squarely on Pacquiao's jaw and under his eye is accurate but, as Tedster would put it, so freaking what?
I just saw Not So Fast Eddie Chambers hit giant Wlad Klitschko with some flickering jabs, maybe he bruised WK's cheeks and what is the point of all that? That bout ended with Chambers surfing the ring mat in the 12th and final round.
Atlas said that shows him that Manny is easy to "touch."
Does he think Mayweather will lean in close like Clottey occasionally did?
That's not Mayweather's m.o., not in the least. Mayweather is not going into the shoulder roll and then leaning in with that sort of punch.
Working at close quarters is exactly what Mayweather will never dare to do against Pacquiao By unless it's late in the fight and he believes Manny is tiring.
Atlas and colleague Brian Kenny rapped out about Clottey-Pacquiao on ESPN Friday Night Fights and Kenny made a cogent comment about Clottey against Miguel Cotto.
When Cotto flung Clottey to the floor early on in a rassling move, it is true that the Ghanaian told ref Arthur Mercante Jr. he wanted to quit at that point. Mercante told me that chastized Clottey and told him to battle on which he did, going the 12 round limit.
Credit Kenny with a sharp eye and/or sharp ears and digging for a story. His father was a New York cop so maybe investigatory work runs in the family, I don't know.
Kenny has taken some rips from Mayweather but he's never taken it personally. Mayweather's remarks have rolled off his back quite easily.
But Atlas is, or comes across as, carrying a grudge against Pacquiao.
Some would say he carried a grudge against Tyson as well but I don't see any comparison. Atlas left the Tyson situation on his own accord as far as I know.
I don't expect neutrality or total objectivity from Atlas. He gets paid for his opinions just like I do although I probably make subway fare compared to his pay rate.
At this rate, I've a better chance of making a loan from Uncle Jerry Jones than from Tedster even at Staten Island "vigorish" rates.
I joke, I josh, I lampoon.
But I think we can, we should expect, Atlas to try to hit the ball down the middle of the fairway once in a while.
Even I do that, once in a very blue moon.
And I do it, even though I work in the filth-ridden sewer of the Internet as opposed to the pristine environment of television.
I could care less if Atlas predicts Mayweather demolishes Pacman in one round, he's entitled to do that as a paid pundit.
But put the Pacquiao hatchet away, will you please?
Give it a try, Theodore, give it a try.
(mlcmarley@aol.com)
Source: examiner.com
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