by Paul Strauss: Poor Joe Tessitore, he has to stand silently in close proximity to Teddy Atlas when Teddy goes off on a rampage. This time Teddy’s ESPN2 FNF overkill dealt with the controversial decision made in favor of Alexander Povetkin, who we all know is Teddy’s former protégé. .
Teddy reached “overkill” levels on two fronts. First, he blew out of proportion the significance of the decision. Teddy felt Marco Huck was deserving of the win. Fine, that’s okay and he might be right in scoring the fight 8 rounds to 4. But, that’s the subjectivity of the sport. Teddy wasn’t satisfied there. He went on (and on and on) about what he feels is corruption in the sport.
His allegations have the referee deliberately interfering with the course of the action by injecting himself into the “infighting portion” of the action and preventing Huck from fighting his fight. That seems to be a bit of an odd charge if indeed Teddy still felt Huck won the fight?
Teddy also attacked the judges, and essentially thought they should be viewed as guilty of what Teddy feels is some kind of wrongdoing since he and others disagree with them. Teddy feels they should be forced to stand in front of the commission and defend themselves, and then when they’re found negligent, which seems a foregone conclusion of Teddy’s, they should be suspended.
Not satisfied, Teddy continued to rant about our corrupt sport of boxing. Such corruption, according to Teddy, is prevalent, and examples can be seen each week?
Finally, Teddy qualified his remarks by repeating over and over that it was not “sour grapes” on his part just because he had a falling out with Alexander Povetkin. Everyone knows, as Teddy emphasized, that that was Povetkin’s fault, because Alexander didn’t live up to their agreement. Teddy wanted Povetking to come to this country to train, which was more convenient for Teddy. Apparently staying where he was must have been more convenient for Povetkin.
Teddy tried to qualify things by saying (several times) that even if he were still training Povetkin, he would feel the same way about the fight, but he just wouldn’t be reporting about it. Too bad that wasn’t the case!. Then we wouldn’t have to witness poor Joe Tessitore’s pained expression, as he and the audience reluctantly listen as Teddy drones on and on, kicking the hell out of the “dead horse”. Here’s a tip Teddy. When you want to make a point, make it, and then shut up. When you babble on and on, it makes people want to side against you and wish you would stick a sock in it.