“I Don’t Just Train Everyone Even If It’s a Pile of Oil Money”: Mike Tyson’s Former Trainer Refused to Train Francis Ngannou for Tyson Fury Bout

Mike Tyson recently joined Francis Ngannou‘s training camp ahead of the upcoming fight against WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. Tyson believes Nagannou has both “energy” and “combat skills” to deliver a “knockout blow” against ‘The Gypsy King’. In his opinion, Ngannou just needs to know how he will combine his energy and skills. According to Tyson, with the right training, Ngannou can, of course, win.

Anyway, ahead of Mike Tyson stepping in, Ngannou’s team approached Tyson’s former coach, Teddy Atlas. Although Atlas called Ngannou and his team a group of “nice people,” he turned down the proposal to train the Cameroonian-French fighter. As per Atlas, he doesn’t train “everybody,” even if it means earning a huge paycheck. In the recent episode of The Fight with Teddy Atlas, the boxing trainer explained why he turned down Ngannou.

Teddy Atlas explains the reason he turned down Francis Ngannou ahead of the Tyson Fury fight

Teddy Atlas declared that he doesn’t want to rub shoulders with Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou. Disclosing that he was approached by Ngannou’s team, Atlas announced, “I don’t just train everyone, even if it’s a pile of oil money in the sand“. Along these lines, the 67-year-old mentioned the conditions under which he would likely guide someone inside the gym. As per Atlas, he must first go through “a trial period” with the athlete in question and comprehend whether or not he is “coachable“.

Almost reiterating his statements on potentially training Ryan Garcia, Atlas said, “I’m not going to train somebody unless I want to be around them, I think they’re a good person, I think I can coach them, I think they’re coachable; and that I think I can help them.” Atlas emphasized that he must first feel that he can make the athlete in question better, whether offensively or defensively. In fine, he added, “I won’t say yes or no until I go through the trial period and see if I wanna work with you.” It looks like Ngannou did not go through Atlas’ trial period. Likewise, Atlas probably could not understand whether or not he could train Ngannou for the fight.

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