He was a South Philly kid long before I knew what that meant. But he is the reason that anytime someone tells me they're from South Philly, I immediately presume they are a great person until proven otherwise. Angelo Dundee, who died Wednesday night in his Tampa home at age 90, was one of the greatest people I have ever met. Greater than the man who called himself "The Greatest," his most famous friend and longtime employer, Muhammad Ali.
Angelo Dundee liked to finish descriptions of some portion of his life by saying this: "But I'm no big deal." He was, of course, whether we are talking about his associations with Ali, Ray Leonard, George Foreman or the 12 other fighters he trained into world champions. Weaned into the fight game by his older brother, Chris, a promoter, Dundee was decency in a sport otherwise defined by double-cross and debauchery.
He never ran down another fighter, another trainer, another cornerman or even a promoter. The closest he ever came was when he spoke of Don King, but it was more what was in his face than in his words. His modus operandi was to hype "my guy," as he would call his fighter, describing the attributes that would enable a victory, using the media as much as we used him, one of many motivational tools at his disposal.
He was great at that. I can't tell you how often I picked up the newspaper I was working for at the time or another one, read the headline and realized Angelo had achieved exactly what he wanted. Didn't know the headline writer, may not have known the guy who wrote the story. But the headline read as if he wrote it, as if he had some type of telepathy.
