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Mike,
CONGRATULATIONS, you made another world champion
in Yuri Foreman, It was clear that this was your technique,
you deserve all credit for his sucsess.
Billy ( England ) |
The day after my former student Yuri Foreman became WBA world champion, I received numerous emails and phone calls similar to Billy’s from my friends and boxers in Israel, Russia, Kazakhstan, Germany, England and the United States…
One rainy autumn morning in 1995, as I was driving with my friend to my job in Haifa, Israel, I saw some kid jogging in the distance. I then said to my friend, “Listen, you see this kid running in the morning in such nasty weather? His coach is very lucky to have him. I am very jealous of this kid’s coach.” After a couple of minutes we caught up to this kid…it turns out this kid was my first student that came to my first workout a couple months ago in the outdoor court of Basmat School in Haifa (because at this time, boxing gyms did not exist in this city)…His name was Yuri Foreman.
At my first encounter with Yuri at the outdoor court of Basmat School, this 14 year-old kid told me, “I knew that you were coming…I was waiting for you…I want to become champion like Mike Tyson…”
After a few workouts, I noticed that Yuri was different from my other students. He had a tremendous desire to work hard. A couple of months later, Yuri made his boxing debut at the Israeli National Junior Olympic Championships. He won two fights. In the semi-finals, scared of his physically intimidating Arab opponent, he lost by decision.
A few fights later, I realized that God blessed Yuri Foreman with the desire to work hard and the ability to learn my technique and footwork quickly. But the same God also cursed him with the lack of psychological strength to overcome his fears in the ring. But this was nothing new to me. My former student Sergei Grigoryev at 17 years old was considered to be a coward by many experienced Russian coaches. They told me that he was too much a coward to become champion. Despite this, I helped him overcome his fear and made him into the 1991 Russian National Champion.
Even with his strengths and weaknesses, I realized that I could make Yuri into a 2000 Olympian. And thus, we continued to work. In 1998, Yuri won the Under-19 Israeli National Championship. After this, at the Under-19 European Championship in Birmingham, England, he won his first fight against a physically tough French opponent. At the next bout however, due to his nervousness, he lost to a Belarusian opponent…In an international tournament in Slovakia, again due to his extreme nervousness, he lost his first bout against a sub par Polish opponent. A couple of months later, my favorite student competed in an international tournament in Italy. After winning two fights, Yuri although he knocked him down, lost to another Polish opponent in the finals because of his nervousness…
In autumn 1998, we went to the Under-19 World Championship in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In his first bout, Yuri Foreman convincingly beat a boxer from Kazakhstan. In his second bout, Yuri out boxed a tough Danish boxer who had previously destroyed a boxer from Ukraine. In the quarterfinal, however, due to his nervousness, Yuri Foreman lost a close fight against a sub par boxer from Yugoslavia. At this event, the head coach of the Russian National Boxing team, Gennady Savin, complimented me by praising Yuri’s peak conditioning for the competition (at this time, bouts were five rounds, two minutes each). If he had known that we trained in the outdoor courts of the Basmat School with one punching bag on my balcony, I believe he would have given me a much greater compliment…
After the world championship in Argentina, I made the decision to continue my coaching career in the United States.
At the end of 1998, Yuri Foreman became the Men’s Israeli National Champion, and my family and I packed our suitcases to move to America.
In the summer of 1999, Yuri Foreman came to New York City and became a member of my family, along with my 11 year-old daughter Diana and my 4 year-old daughter Valerie. Our first workout in America was at the legendary Gleason’s Gym. Because of Yuri Foreman’s boxing stance and my boxing style many coaches did not see a future in him. They told me that he could never become a professional because he moved too much and could not last 12 rounds…Knowing Yuri extremely well I told him to ignore other coaches’ criticisms. I explained to him that it was necessary for him to keep my style because he had no chin and he lacked knockout power. My style gave him foot work and I explained that this was much more important than punching...
From the first day in Gleason’s Gym, I started to prepare Yuri Foreman for the 1999 World Amateur Championships in Houston…Every morning we traveled from Manhattan to Brooklyn by subway. Once we reached the Hudson River, Yuri exited the subway and ran to 42nd Street. I traveled by train with our gym bags to my job where I trained him before I started working. After work, we went to Gleason’s Gym for our afternoon workout. We continued this schedule for many months. We had no money to travel to Houston so I asked the boss of my company, M&A Linens, Michael Bernesteyn to help us out. We sought to raise money from other companies. Some company owners gave us $10.00 and asked us for $5.00 dollars change. In one instance, when I told the company owner in Hebrew that Yuri will be the only representative from Israel, the owner told me that it is better the he goes to pray than to box.
Finally we made it to Houston and we had an unlucky draw. Our first fight was against Larry Mosley, who was the Goodwill Games Silver medalist and 2-time USA National Champion. He was also the cousin of the legendary “Sugar” Shane Mosley. It was a close fight and Yuri Foreman lost an 8-5 decision.
Nonetheless, we continued to train hard. I told Yuri “We will continue to work hard. Our win will come.”
An interesting detail: In a workout in 1999 as I was training Yuri an American woman came to me and said that “I want to move and box like your student Yuri Foreman because I want to be USA champion.” Her name was Jill Emery. Until 2004, she won all amateur titles except the Woman’s Amateur World Championship. In 2008, Jill Emery became my first student to become female professional World Champion. But this is another story.
After the World Championship in Houston, I started to prepare Yuri Foreman for the New York Golden Gloves. We worked hard from morning to night. I saw my family only in the morning while my kids were still sleeping. And at night I saw them again when I came back from the gym with Yuri Foreman while there were asleep. On the weekends, I traveled to other parts in America to look for fights so that Yuri Foreman could gain experience. My wife started to converse with me, even in front of Yuri Foreman, about sending Yuri Foreman back to Israel. When I defended Yuri, she told me, “You will see, when Yuri becomes great in boxing, he will betray you.” One day when she was exhausted from our arguments she told me, “Either him or your family.” After I told her “I never betray my kids and my students,” Yuri Foreman and I rented another apartment that was across the street from my house. My wife then started to file papers for divorce.
In the 2000 New York Golden Gloves Yuri Foreman won three fights and went to final in Madison Square Garden against Luis Collazo. Again my boy, due to nervousness, lost the fight. We were lucky because Luis Collazo, after this fight turned professional and Yuri Foreman took his place on the New York team and went to Detroit, Michigan for the National Golden Gloves. Yuri Foreman was the only that brought back a bronze medal for the New York team.
Yuri continued to grow up. I set him up with a nice girl to occupy himself with (who turned out to be his future wife). I then became less concerned his private life.
Finally in 2001, Yuri won the New York Golden Gloves and, for the second time, became the bronze medalist at the National Golden Gloves.
After the National Golden Gloves we decided to turn professional. Yoel Judah, the father of the then-world champion Zab Judah, who respected me a lot, connected me with Shelly Finkel. Shelly didn’t want to sign Yuri Foreman, because he felt that he fought too much like an amateur and was not impressive enough for a professional career. But out of respect of Yoel Judah, Shelly arrange for Yuri Foreman’s professional debut on the undercard of the fight between Zab Judah and Kostya Tszyu. We were scheduled to fight after the main event but due to Zab Judah’s altercation with the judges, the fight was cancelled.
In January 2002, Yuri Foreman made his professional debut and won by first round TKO.
I then started to work with the promoter Lou DiBella. Lou DiBella liked Yuri Foreman, but was not impressed with his style. He did not see a future for Yuri Foreman in professional boxing. But out of respect for me, DiBella agreed to arrange fights for Yuri Foreman without signing.
In his second fight, on a card for ESPN2, Yuri Foreman, won by knockout. After this, what emerged was, as they use to call it when I was a university student in Soviet Russia, the ugly face of professional sport; we were taught that a manager or promoter doesn’t care about boxers—they’re only concerned with how to make money off of athletes. Here is my first lesson about the dirty side of professional boxing: After the fight, one of Lou DiBella’s matchmakers called us and told us that he had a match next week in Baltimore with a nobody, George Armenta, that Yuri Foreman could easily knockout. He had four wins and one loss. We had no time to check any information about our opponent. Once we arrived in Baltimore, we learned that he had over 200 amateur fights and his only professional loss came to an opponent with a 9-0 record. I told Yuri Foreman “Yuri, the promoter is checking us and putting us in trouble. We have no choice but to fight. However I am confident that you have better conditioning than any opponent. This is six rounds not four and that will give us a greater chance of winning.”
Now we were in the ring against the local favorite. After a few seconds in the first round, Yuri Foreman was knocked down. It was only through his footwork that Yuri Foreman was able to survive the rest of the round. At the end of the third round, Yuri Foreman began to hurt his opponent with various combinations putting Armenta in real trouble on the canvas. The crowd of 3,000 was going wild during this tough fight. Yuri Foreman won a majority decision and was considered the fight of the night. In my opinion, it was the best fight of Yuri Foreman’s professional career.
After this fight, Lou DiBella came to our dressing room, smiling. I was so furious, that I grabbed DiBella and told him angrily, “If you give one more fight like this for my son, I will not talk to you so lightly!”
When returned to New York, I told DiBella that I would never take another fight unless you provide information about the opponent with a video. After this incident with DiBella, I noticed that they began inviting Yuri Foreman to boxing events without me. I felt that they started to manipulate Yuri Foreman, but when I told Yuri my feelings about this, Yuri Foreman told me, “Michael, don’t worry. You are like a father to me. I love you.”
I started to become even more nervous, when one night at dinner, Yuri Foreman told me that he wanted to leave the apartment to live with his girlfriend. He told me he would continue to help with the rent. However, when the time came for the rent to be paid, he told me that he had no money. But I knew he made more money from his fights than my one-month salary. I began to economize tremendously; the rent took a huge portion of my salary and I had to support my children. Fortunately, my friends helped me out a lot.
Yuri Foreman began to change tremendously; he started to argue with me during workouts. His girlfriend began to arrange meeting with lawyers concerning his professional career behind my back. When I told her to keep her nose out of our business, she told me, “Michael, you a great coach, but you don’t understand show business.” I later realized that Yuri Foreman chose to only listen to her.
Throughout all of this, Yuri Foreman’s career continued to progress according to plan—he had at least one fight per month.
In August, 2002, Yuri Foreman made his first tough fight against the undefeated Jose Luis Almanzar. It was our first live fight on ESPN2. Yuri Foreman won a unanimous decision.
A few weeks after this fight, Yuri Foreman told me, “Michael, the promoter told me that ‘if your no-name coach stays in your corner, you wont be on television’” I told him, “Yuri, who brought you to this promoter? Who brought you to this level? Now you have to defend me. They have to do what you say. They need you. If they don’t listen to you, we can go to another promoter.” Yuri continued, “They told me to train with Tommy Brooks to learn an American style.” I replied, “What is an American style? You’ve been training for eight years with the same style. We don’t have time to switch our style. You have no power or chin for an American style. If you lose one fight, that will be the end of your career. How many good Russian boxers came to America? Hundreds. Where are they? They disappear because they change their style…Yuri, please don’t betray me, don’t betray our dream.”
After this conversation, Yuri Foreman stopped coming to our workouts. My students then told me that he went to New Jersey to train with Tommy Brooks. Zab Judah at this time consoled me and told me not to worry. He told me “Michael, don’t be upset. Tommy Brooks trained me and I know that he’s not on your level. Yeah, Tommy Brooks trained Holyfield and Mike Tyson but we all know who their real trainers were. You’ll see, Yuri will return.”
Weeks and weeks passed. I continued to count every dollar, waiting for a call from Yuri Foreman. Then one day, I became so mad that I felt that if I were to see him I would tear him to pieces. I started to ask my students how I could find Yuri so that I can have a serious man-to-man conversation with him. But this was not like Rocky V. One day in December in 2002, two FBI agents came to my job, M&A Linens, and forced their way past Michael Bernesteyn, who helped raise money for Yuri Foreman to travel to Houston. They then began to investigate me. Based on what Yuri told them, they told me that I was a part of the Russian mafia and I sent someone to put a gun to Yuri Foreman’s head. For two hours, they tried to make me confess to criminal charges. When they left they told me, “If you come closer than a few yards of Yuri, we will send you back to your f---ing Russia.”
I only learned later about Yuri’s career through television and newspapers. After a couple of fights, Tommy Brooks stopped training him. Yuri Foreman then jumped from one coach to another but he continued to use a worse version of my style…
In 2007, at the Amateur World Championship in Chicago I spent a lot of time with Shelly Finkel, who in my opinion is one of the greatest professional boxing managers in the world. He made the professional career for fighters such as Mark Breland, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Zab Judah, Fernando Vargas, Wladimir Klitschko among others…
As were walking together in Chicago, Shelly Finkel told me,
“If I had signed Yuri Foreman at that time, I would have never let him leave you.”
I replied, “But Shelly, you always changed the coaches after you signed your boxers.”
Shelly looked into my eyes and said, “But not a coach like you.”
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