Angelo Hyder Interview: "This may be Danny Green's last fight"
 By Daniel Smart, Doghouse Boxing (Oct 22, 2012)
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Famed
Australian boxer trainer Angelo Hyder is well known to boxing fans. In
this expansive interview, Hyder discusses his fighter Danny Green’s
upcoming battle with former heavyweight Shane Cameron, Vic Darchinyan’s
recent win over Luis Del Valle, and the fallout of Antonio Tarver’s
recent positive drug test. Enjoy.
DANIEL
SMART: Hi, this is Daniel Smart from Doghouseboxing.com. I’m here with
Danny Green and Vic Darchinyan trainer, Angelo Hyder. Angelo, how are
you today, mate?
ANGELO HYDER: Pretty good thanks, mate.
DANIEL
SMART: That’s the way. Listen mate, we’ll get stuck straight into it.
Look, you’re probably Australia’s best trainer. Certainly, Australia’s
most well known.
ANGELO HYDER: [Johnny] Lewis is the best, mate. I can’t take that hat away from my mate, Johnny. He’s the number one.
DANIEL
SMART: Oh okay, no worries. Well yeah, that’s true, I suppose,
definitely. Yeah, look, basically just going to touch on your, I guess,
star pupil’s preparation, Danny Green, coming up to his November fight
with Shane Cameron from New Zealand for the IBO cruiserweight title,
mate. How’s preparations going there, Ang?
ANGELO HYDER: They’re going good mate. Just wish Greeny was a lot younger, mate. It
really – it’s breaking my heart knowing that, you know, this may be his
last fight or he’s coming very close to the end when it seems to me that
he’s just getting better and better and better. And everything we’ve
been working on over an amount of years, when you restart a preparation,
he’s just the type of bloke – he starts off from where he left off.
It’s like you had a couple of days off and you’re going again. It’s
crazy.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah. I guess what I sort of really want to know, and a lot of
the fans want to know, after his last fight against light-heavy Danny
Santiago from the States, what was the reasoning for Danny moving back
up to cruiserweight again?
ANGELO HYDER: Mate, he busted his arse to try and get down to light heavyweight and
he struggled to get to the weight that he got to. He said, mate, I can’t
make the light heavyweight limit to fight for the titles. You’re in no
man’s land in certain ways, and then [Antonio] Tarver got caught on
drugs and the IBO said, listen, you’re the last reigning champion of the
title. You know, you’re the first fighter that deserves to fight for
the title, which is good to see that people don’t forget you and show
you a bit of respect. So, Greeny said, well listen, you know, I’ve been
promising – looking for a crack at Cameron. He just came off a fantastic
win of Monte Barrett, you can’t do better than that. The deal, sort of,
was there and it just all sort of fell into place without too much
working. Mate, where Greeny’s at now, he don’t need too many headaches.
He just wants to get in, fight blokes that are going to put on – that’s
going to be a good fight. And mate, this is a very dangerous fight for
him. So, it just fell together, to be honest.
DANIEL
SMART: That’s fair enough. And just on your point before, Angelo, just
in regards to Greeny probably weight-wise being stuck in between a rock
and a hard place. If he’s finding it hard to get down to light-heavy, it
doesn’t seem he carries the weight for a cruiser that well either.
Would that be a fair assessment?
ANGELO HYDER: Mate, it’s the biggest joke in boxing. Like, you go down to the lighter weights and there’s a kilo between them.
DANIEL SMART: Yeah, exactly.
ANGELO HYDER: And you get to 79 kilos and the next minute, you know, you’re going
from 79 to bloody 91. It’s ridiculous. Now, if cruiserweight was still
how it was, the 86, it’d be perfect. Greeny’d be perfect.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah, yeah. Now, you know, going up in those heavier weights, it
just appears to me at light-heavy he probably struggles to make that
weight, and cruiserweight it appears he carries a bit too much into the
ring. It’s obviously not easy for him and he’s obviously had a crack at
both weights and acquitted himself quite well, there’s no doubt about
that. He’s won titles in both of those divisions. So look, bloody hats
off to him, mate, he’s a wonderful fighter and obviously I’ve been a fan
of Danny’s for God knows how long now. So, hopefully, he can get the
job done over Shane Cameron coming up in November in Melbourne, guys. If
you can’t get to the fight, order the fight on Main Event pay-per-view,
and support a fantastic Australian boxer. Moving on now, Ang, you
obviously had Vic Darchinyan in your stable as well. What was your
assessment of his recent fight with the Puerto Rican kid, Luis Orlando
Del Valle?
ANGELO HYDER: Mate, it was an absolute fantastic effort. You know, he was paying up
to $3.20 as the underdog. A lot of my mates got on him at $2.65 in a
two-horse race for a win. Luis Del Valle said to the promoter “I don’t
see any possible way that Darchinyan can win the fight. So you know,
this bloke was Felix Trinidad, he’s going on about a better pedigree
than Vic, I’m from Puerto Rico, Felix Trinidad, all this sort of stuff.
And mate, everybody in the whole boxing world thought that he was
actually going to beat Vic. It was, actually, a huge upset over there.
DANIEL SMART: Are you serious?
ANGELO HYDER: Yeah, it was mate. You know, how do you get $2.65 in a two-horse race?
But the thing is, look, with Danny – with fighters out there, you see
fantastic performances and other times, you know, you see other lesser
performances. But what happens is, it’s not like a sport like football
where you can have a couple of bad games, or golf, and you’re out in the
first round and you win the tournament. In boxing, if everything
doesn’t line up on that minute and that hour or on that day, if you’re
10 per cent off at that level, mate, you can get knocked out.
DANIEL SMART: Yeah, that’s exactly right, mate.
ANGELO HYDER: Going back to Greeny and that weight, just quickly with [Krzysztof]
Wlodarczyk, he had Wlodarczyk in the fifth round, but he wasn’t big and
strong enough bloke to put him away. At light heavyweight, Greeny would
have knocked him out. Greeny’s never not knocked anyone out in his
career when he’s fit.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah, that’s right, mate. And just quickly going back to that,
Ang, look, at the end of the day – and you could quite obviously see –
Greeny had won pretty much every round up until that nine, 10 round
mark. And you could probably see, maybe around round eight you could
tell he was just sort of starting to take the foot off the pedal a
little bit.
ANGELO HYDER: What happened is, Danny got his nose broken badly in about round nine.
DANIEL SMART: Oh righto.
ANGELO HYDER: Two rounds, and he was swallowing that much blood he couldn’t breathe.
If you watch the tape again, you’ll see Greeny holding Wlodarczyk, put
his head over his shoulder, blow his nose and just big chunks of blood
was blowing out of his nose.
DANIEL SMART: Oh, I actually didn’t see that.
ANGELO HYDER: Yeah. If you watch the corner, I’m trying to stop it and he’s spitting.
Watch the replay, he’s coughing chunks, big, big chunks of blood up. He
couldn’t breathe and it took it out of him straight up.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah, okay, okay. Well, what was your, sort of, explanation for
the Tarver fight, because he looked pretty tired around about five and
six too didn’t he?
ANGELO HYDER: He looked tired earlier than that, mate, but we’re not making excuses.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah, that’s right. And I’m pretty sure Greeny’s not the sort of
guy to obviously make excuses as well. But look, just back onto Vic
Darchinyan, he dismantled that kid, and I find it absolutely ludicrous
to think that Del Valle went in as a favourite over in the United
States. That’s shocking. The guy what, 16 and 0 and he’s never really
fought anybody of note and he steps in with Vic Darchinyan and he’s
favourite. I just find that bizarre.
ANGELO HYDER: Oh mate, it was – I told everyone I knew bet your house on this one,
this is a special. You ain’t going to get odds like this again.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah, absolutely. And so, what’s next for Vic, Angelo? Have you
sort of sat down and sort of decided where you are going to go next or
what’s the story, mate?
ANGELO HYDER: It’s with his manager, I keep right out of it as best I can. I’ve got
enough headaches as it is. And mate, Elias [Nasser] is the best judge in
the business. Vic’s the type of bloke, he turns up, he says, mate, I’m
here to knock you out, I’m not here to look fuckin’ fancy and carrying
on. I’m going to knock you out.
DANIEL SMART: Yeah, he loves it, doesn’t he?
ANGELO HYDER: So, you know, that’s why they love Vic. Like, Vic says, give me a
Filipino or Mexican any day. They come to fight. Don’t give me these
runners, I’ve been fighting blokes that run. I’m here to fight, I want
to fight. I want to entertain the people.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah. And look, I know from, obviously, certain circles and
people I’ve spoken to around the traps, I know he desperately wants
another crack at [Abner] Mares. Would you reckon that would eventuate at
some stage?
ANGELO HYDER: It could. Mate, he wants anyone that’s going to be exciting. He does want Mares, he wants Donaire.
DANIEL SMART: I reckon he beat him that first time and that’s just my opinion.
ANGELO HYDER: Well, most people think that. Unfortunately mate, he didn’t get it and
that was ridiculous, the referee allowing those low blows.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah, I know. It’s unbelievable. And look, I thought Vic won it,
you know, pretty convincingly, but anyway, that’s another story. We’re
not judges at the end of the day are we, so – yeah look, obviously,
look, just for our American audiences, Angelo, look, I know you’ve
probably got a bit of exposure over there, but just, obviously again for
our American audiences, can you tell us where you started in boxing and
how you got into it?
ANGELO HYDER: Well mate, I started boxing – because where I played – I was in
Victoria like you mate. It was pretty rough and tough down in the
country where I played footy and…
DANIEL SMART: Whereabouts are you from, Ang?
ANGELO HYDER: I’m from Nyora down South Gippsland.
DANIEL SMART: Oh righto, yeah, okay.
ANGELO HYDER: And mate – and one of my mates was a boxer and he said, you better come
down here and sharpen your skills up. I got down there and loved it. I
just about had a fight, then I joined the army. Fighting in the army, I
fought in my unit, fought up in Queensland. Won the Golden Gloves up
there. And then, mate, I got glandular fever, I was going to go pro when
I got out. Got glandular fever and I could never get fit again. Every
time I try and train hard it ran me down, and then I just fell into
starting to train Marc Bargero and Bob Mirovic and Guy Waters and I was
probably a lot better at that than – I always had a passion for helping
people. I was a professional coach at 24 and coached first grade in my
home town.
DANIEL SMART: Yeah.
ANGELO HYDER: So, I always had a passion to help people, so I just, sort of, fell
into training blokes and then it went from there, and we couldn’t get
the blokes fights, so me and Marco built a gym in his backyard of his
dad’s house and said, we’re going to – I said, mate, we’re going to
start promoting. We started promoting.
DANIEL SMART: Fantastic.
ANGELO HYDER: And I started – ended up partners with Jeff Fenech and we done that for
a lot of years and then Jeff retired at the time and I moved on and
kept going and…
DANIEL SMART: The rest is history.
ANGELO HYDER: …the rest is bloody history.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah. So you did mention you obviously worked a lot with Jeff.
Who would you regard as the biggest influence on your training career?
ANGELO HYDER: Mate, Jeff’s obviously, you know, a very clever bloke and, you know,
he’s been there and done it. But Johnny Lewis. I always say Johnny’s got
the skills that I don’t have. He’s one of the best mentors in every way
I’ve ever met and I just love, absolutely love, every minute of the day
that I spend with Johnny, no matter what it’s doing. When I was in the
army I had a trainer called Phil Ragonesi(*) who only trains amateurs.
He just had a fantastic style that he learned off, I think, a bloke
called Jack Rutkowski(*) and Robbie Peden, your mate’s father, Phil,
they trained together and they both learned that style off Jack with
Robbie’s dad and that similar style.
DANIEL SMART: Yeah.
ANGELO HYDER: So, that style was probably one of the biggest influences
early on that I had, and then, you know, probably, Jeff and Johnny’s
the complete opposite. That was more skill and Jeff’s and Johnny’s, you
know, aggression.
DANIEL SMART: Yeah.
ANGELO HYDER: As professionals, has probably been a very big influence.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah. Well look, certainly, from where you’ve come from, Angelo,
you’ve obviously achieved pretty remarkable things, you know,
especially with Danny’s career and his KO of Roy Jones Jr in round one
and, you know, back a few years ago, I remember that fight. I actually
flew up to Sydney for that one.
ANGELO HYDER: Do you know one of Danny’s biggest wins, mate, talking about big blokes was BJ Flores.
DANIEL
SMART: BJ Flores, yeah. Look, he’s a guy that – I spoke to him on ATG
Radio boxing show based out of Vegas and when I was doing some
corresponding work there. And he seems to be having trouble getting
fights over there. For one reason or another, he seems to be – and even
in Europe, you know, the cruiserweight division is very much based in
Europe and a lot of their fighters are based there. Even over there he
seems to be having trouble getting opponents. Is that a bit of a – I
guess, can we add that to his talent or what’s your opinion on the guy?
ANGELO HYDER: You know, it’s all about money. Like, we’ve got Danny Green in West
Australia, there’s hardly any boxing. He puts his money where his mouth
his. He puts his arse on the line every time he fights. Pays big money
and puts on big fights. I mean, not many people are prepared to do that.
Flores is with Don King, Don’s got plenty of money. Don’s also got, you
know, the WBA champion. He’s got them both. So why doesn’t he stick him
in?
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah. Danny’s had some great moments inside the ring and he
fought a beautiful fight that night too. He was very strategic. Very
strategic fight and you could tell there was a lot of planning that went
into that. So well done to both of you.
ANGELO HYDER: I’ve got to wrap it up, mate.
DANIEL
SMART: Yeah, that’s fine. Thanks for your time, Ang, I really
appreciate it, mate. I know you’re flat out and you’re pretty busy with
Danny’s preparations and stuff like that, so mate, I appreciate your
time. I’m a big fan of your work, a big fan of Danny’s and you’re a
credit to Australian boxing, mate, and again, thank you for your time.
ANGELO HYDER: Ring me any time, mate, get hold of me whenever you need.
DANIEL SMART: Righto, good on you. Thank you, Ang, I appreciate it, have a good day.
ANGELO HYDER: Right.
DANIEL SMART: See you.
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Questions? Comments? Contact Daniel Smart: bellebelle78@yahoo.com.au
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