Eddie Futch trained Ireland's first ever WBC World Champion, Wayne McCullough.
24 Facts About Eddie Futch
1.
2.
Eddie Futch was married to Eva Marlene Futch from March 21,1996, until his death.
3.
Eddie Futch was born in Hillsboro, Mississippi, but moved with his family to Detroit, Michigan when he was five years old.
4.
Eddie Futch planned to attend the YMCA College School at the University of Chicago, but when the Great Depression happened, he was forced to continue his job at the Wolverine Hotel to support his family.
5.
In 1932, Eddie Futch won the Detroit Athletic Association Lightweight Championship, and in 1935, he won the Detroit Golden Gloves Championship.
6.
Eddie Futch trained at the same gym as Joe Louis, the Brewster Recreation Center Gym, and often sparred with the future champion.
7.
Eddie Futch prepared fighters to perform at the highest levels of the sport for several decades.
8.
Champions who worked under Eddie Futch's tutelage include Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes, Ken Norton, Riddick Bowe, Trevor Berbick, Michael Spinks, Alexis Arguello, Marlon Starling, Wayne McCullough, Montell Griffin, and his first world champion fighter, Don Jordan, who was crowned world welterweight champion in 1958.
9.
Eddie Futch was first hired by Frazier, and his chief cornerman and manager Yank Durham to help him prepare for a fight with "Scrap Iron" Johnson in 1967.
10.
Eddie Futch trained Frazier to stay low and constantly bob and weave, in order to create a sense of persistent motion and pressure.
11.
Eddie Futch reckoned this would play mind games with Ali, who was so proud of his own jab.
12.
Eddie Futch developed a strategy for the first Ali fight by analysing the opponent's boxing style.
13.
Eddie Futch noted that Ali often leaned his head away from punches.
14.
Ali could not do that with his body, so the boxing proverb 'kill the body and the head dies' became the plan - Eddie Futch told Frazier to wear down Ali with persistent body punches.
15.
Eddie Futch believed that Frazier's constant bobbing and weaving would make Ali uncomfortable because he would often have to punch down at Frazier's head, which was something he was not used to doing.
16.
Finally, Eddie Futch noticed that Ali's uppercuts were thrown sloppily and technically incorrectly.
17.
Eddie Futch instructed Frazier to throw a left hook over the top of Ali's right uppercuts, and told his fighter to beat Ali to the punch when doing so.
18.
Eddie Futch served as Frazier's manager and chief second for the fight, having inherited those duties from Durham who died from a stroke shortly after Frazier's defeat by George Foreman in 1973.
19.
Eddie Futch claimed that Ali had held Frazier illegally 133 times in that fight without being penalized.
20.
Eddie Futch had done it against Foreman in his defeat of him in Zaire.
21.
Eddie Futch told Filipino authorities that Ali intended to ruin what was to be a great event for their nation by constantly tying up Frazier illegally, and suggested that they assign one of their countrymen as referee.
22.
Eddie Futch wanted Frazier to bait Ali into throwing the uppercut again, but Ali did not do this during the fight.
23.
Eddie Futch thought the key would be for Frazier to constantly attack Ali's body, including punches to the hips when Ali effectively covered up his torso along the ropes.
24.
Eddie Futch told Frazier to be patient and deliberate in his attack, and to concentrate mostly on the body when Ali went into his rope-a-dope strategy so that he would not exhaust himself as Foreman had done.