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the pain and uncertainty. He has to maintain the dream. “They’re special people,” Freddie would say again and again, often with a rueful, sideways grin, his secret smile of amusement. “If I didn’t get talented guys, I wouldn’t be a good trainer.” It’s not just the athleticism, the speed and the power, but that has to be a part of it. Nobody becomes a world champion who isn’t naturally stronger and faster than other men. But then there comes the dedication, the ability to learn and listen, the fire to get in the ring and work and get up and run every morning. And it’s not six months, or even a year; anyone can do that. It’s five years, it’s eight years, ten years. That’s some serious fuel. The monastic lifestyle, “clean living” has to be a choice.
    Freddie’s an adult; he’s not a father to his fighters. He’s not going to make someone do all these things, but he’ll help someone who’s come this far. He trains men, not boys. He’ll allow prima donnas and bear with craziness, because that’s part and parcel of being a “special person.” Big-time fighters are usually a little nuts, their place in society somewhat unknowable, and Freddie knows they have to be, to survive in this brutal business.
    Freddie’s not going to try and change most fighters from the ground up; he’s just another fighter, primarily. He’s going to help you see some things you might not have seen, to fine tune some things that will work. With the notable exception of Manny Pacquiao, a tough explosive fighter whom Freddie took and nurtured for a long time and turned into a world-beating technician.
    Freddie and Teddy Atlas had a philosophical difference over the training of Michael Moorer. Moorer, who features prominently in Atlas, Teddy’s autobiography, is a fascinating example of an extremely talented fighter, who won two world championships but at times seemed to hate boxing. Moorer came up under the intense tutelage of another legend, Emanuel Steward, with whom he had a father-son bond. At light-heavy, 175 pounds, Moorer went on a run that has never been duplicated—22-0 with twenty-two knockouts. With nothing to prove at light-heavy, and sick of starving himself, Moorer went after the bigger money, at heavyweight. Moorer grew out of his familial relationship with Steward, and then Teddy Atlas was a good fit. Still, Moorer would have days when he didn’t want to train. He would sulk and make life hard for everybody around him. “I was an asshole, straight up,” Moorer said when I asked him about it. And he laughed. “I was doing things in order to keep my toughness. That’s not me, that’s the game I was in.”
    When I met Michael he was working with Freddie as a trainer and teacher, around Wild Card, still touching the game that defined him. To me, he seemed like a big black boulder, slope shouldered, powerful, melancholy perhaps, reserved, almost baby-faced. His presence, his handshake, made me think of Mike Tyson’s challenge to a reporter who was pestering him, “You wouldn’t last two minutes in my world.” I wouldn’t last two minutes in Moorer’s world. He felt like a survivor from another time, a harsher world, with his iron grip and scarred hands, arms, face. He was quiet, polite, with the mildness of a man who has done what he set out to do.
    Atlas describes in great detail the intricate head games that he played with Moorer to get him to train and fight the right way, and they won a world title together—an impressive achievement, and something Freddie speaks of very respectfully. The heavyweight strap is a serious thing. But later, Michael Moorer left Teddy and went over to Freddie Roach. Freddie was quoted as saying, “I let Michael be Michael,” and Teddy responds in his book that, “The whole point was not to let Michael be Michael.” It reflects their stylistic differences, their backgrounds. Atlas used to train kids, build fighters, shape young men. Moorer even says that