The Rebirth of Ian Clyde "The Shotgun Reloads"

 

THE REBIRTH OF IAN CLYDE

“The Shotgun Reloads”

“There are no second acts in American life,” once said F. Scott Fitzgerald many years ago. Fitzgerald’s theory was that you get one shot in life at getting it right and if you screw up, you are doomed to a life of failure and misery. It is safe to assume that Mr. Fitzgerald never met Canada’s Ian Clyde.

Ian Clyde is one of the most beloved and admired athletes to ever come out of Canada. As a celebrated amateur boxer, Clyde won the Canadian flyweight title ten years in a row. This is a record that stood for many years. As a professional fighter Clyde was ranked number one in the world and came within a couple of points of capturing the IBF world flyweight title. If not for some home cooking in South Korea, Clyde would have been the world flyweight champion.

Unlike many retired athletes, Ian has virtually no bitterness about his career. In fact, quite the opposite is true. He feels blessed by God to have had the legendary Angelo Dundee as his trainer and manager for his entire pro career. Ian always called Dundee “Uncle Angelo,” and Dundee’s wife Helen, “Aunty Helen.” Ian always speaks of them both very often and in the most loving terms. Indeed it would be harder to find another human being on this planet more modest than Ian Clyde.

Perhaps the most interesting character trait of Ian Clyde aka “The Shotgun,” is that he is always truly surprised whenever anyone expresses their fondness for him or memories of him. He really does look forward to each new day as a blessing and a fresh start.  I have been lucky to know Ian now for just under ten years. I first met Ian courtesy of Angelo Dundee. Before I met Ian, Angelo told me, “To know Ian Clyde is to love Ian Clyde.” With each passing day, I am beginning to understand what he meant.

Recently Ian and I along with many other Canadians had the somber task of flying to Clearwater, Florida for the funeral of Angelo Dundee. Ian and I both loved Angelo for different and similar reasons. Ian grew up with a polio-like disease, which required him to wear awkward leg braces while attending elementary school. As we all know, children can be frightening cruel in elementary school and in Ian’s case, this was especially true as many of them taunted him daily by calling him a cripple and laughing at him.

Ian fell in love early with boxing and during elementary school he would tell everyone he was going to become a professional boxer and, that Muhammad Ali’s trainer Angelo Dundee would be his trainer too. As one would guess, the other kids laughed long and loud at Ian’s boast. Ian never became angry with them for their terrible taunts. The daily derision he received from these kids just made him more resolute to succeed at boxing.

Angelo Dundee made every taunt Ian ever received disappear when he signed Ian to a contract and agreed to train and manage him professionally. Angelo always believed in Ian and this belief never waned even in the slightest degree throughout their long professional association and personal friendship. Ian never missed an opportunity to thank Angelo for his eternal belief in him. Ian also told Angelo how much he loved him and important he was in Ian’s life overall. Angelo always told Ian the feeling was more than mutual and it was.

To give you an idea of the engaging character of Ian Clyde, during Angelo’s funeral, when we were all weeping, he whispered to me, “I could have done more for him.” That would be an incredible comment from anyone but it was even more astounding coming from Ian. Why? Ian spoke with Angelo often over the years. Ian Clyde was essentially Angelo Dundee’s second son. Although Ian always expressed his affection for Angelo to Angelo, he still feels he should have done more for his mentor and close friend.

Essentially, the comment, “I could have done more for him,” perfectly sums up Ian Clyde, a man always looking to go the extra mile for those that mean the most to him in his life. Ian has had a tough time financially over the past decade. Yet, he still felt obliged to attend Angelo Dundee’s funeral. He would not even consider not attending the funeral of this man who believed in him throughout his career and long after. Angelo’s confidence in and admiration for Ian never waned.

Ian is a very emotional person. This has nothing to do with boxing. This is essentially Ian’s own personal make-up. It is the way in which he is wired. Ian wears his heart on his sleeve because he knows of no other way to live his life. Through every setback personally and professionally that he has encountered, Ian has never expressed anger or bitterness towards anyone, except for the pastor who married him and his second wife.

This is the same pastor who preached every weekend at his church on the sanctity and holiness of marriage, and then went and had a sexual affair with Ian’s wife. The pastor ran off with Ian’s wife and moved with her to B.C. This was almost a mortal blow to Ian because his wife tokk their three young children with her to B.C. This meant that their high school years are spent far away from their father, who has resided in Montreal now for over a quarter of a century.   The children visit him every summer and during the holidays too but for Ian, that is not enough. What puzzles Ian most is how a pastor can so wantonly break the vows of his own church and still be licensed to serve as a minister by the same church.

Ian’s greatest desire in recent years was for Angelo Dundee to meet his four children. Angelo has three daughters and one son. Hs daughter Heather is the eldest and is the product of Ian’s first marriage. His second marriage produced Amanda, Christine and Kevin. It is precisely because he and Angelo shared similar life values that it was important to Ian that his children meet Angelo.

Ian’s pride in his children is omnipresent. He talks about them often and he always sports a huge smile when discussing his offspring. Ian is a very involved, encouraging and proud father. The day of Angelo’s funeral was a very long day. Ian and I were staying in the same hotel but on that very emotionally draining day, we did not make it back to our hotel until 3:30 in the morning. As I headed for the elevator, Ian walked right by me down the hall. I asked him where he was going. He said he wanted to send his children some emails.  I suggested to him that the emails could wait and that getting some much needed rest should be foremost on his mind.

Ian smiled wearily. He said, “I want my kids to wake up knowing that I was thinking about them.”  For Ian, his children are paramount to his very existence. He is a hands-on father, speaking with his children every single day. As a result, Ian is very close with all of his children, which he regards as his single greatest achievement. Angelo and Ian both believed that family always comes first. Angelo’s well known credo of, “It don’t cost nothing to be nice to someone” is also shared by Ian.

At Angelo Dundee’s funeral, Ian was really taken aback by the affection he received from many of the people in attendance.  Muhammad Ali’s wife Lonnie made a point of seeking out Ian and talking with him. She told him how Muhammad was thinking of him and wished him well. Ian was a stable mate of Muhammad Ali.

Angelo’s son Jimmy, himself a grandfather, gave Ian a bear hug and repeatedly told Ian that he was family. To be accepted like that took some of the sting out of being ignored by the boxing establishment in Quebec, a wrong that has to this date not yet been righted. Like many Canadians in the arts, Ian has received world-wide recognition for his boxing and fitness skills and his coaching, teaching and mentoring abilities everywhere but in Canada.

After Angelo’s funeral, Ian was introduced to Matt Baiamonte, Dino Spencer and Tom Tsatas, the new owners of the famed Fifth Street Gym in Miami, Florida, started originally by Chris and Angelo Dundee. They offered Ian a job on the spot. This says a lot about the boxing establishments in both Canada and the United States.

Ian Clyde was a world ranked fighter for many years as a Canadian amateur and as a professional, yet he is to this day largely ignored by both amateur and professional boxing organizations in Canada. Given Ian’s vast and amateur background it is somewhat astounding that he is not involved in training our Olympic boxing hopefuls. Considering Ian’s successful professional career and the fact that he was trained by Angelo Dundee, widely considered boxing’s most outstanding trainer, it is inconceivable that he has not been hired to help guide a young Canadian hotshot to a title shot. Canadian Mikael Zewski would benefit greatly from Ian’s experience and expertise. Ian was known in the pros for his speed and for his brutal body attack, something, which would be a boon to Zewski’s already impressive skill set.

Ian has an advantage over many of today’s boxing trainers due to his extensive background in physical fitness, which is an area in boxing today that is receiving a tremendous amount of attention. Boxers these days fully realize that being good at boxing is simply not enough to succeed in the sport.

Toda’s fighters require much more than a world class set of boxing skills. They must also be in excellent physical condition and able to go three minutes of every round for a full twelve rounds. This is much easier said than done. Many of today’s trainers are simply not equipped in that area and thus must hire a training specialist to help improve and maintain their fighter’s physical conditioning. 

Today’s boxing world champions are in vastly superior physical shape different than those great fighters of many years ago. Today’s top pugilists have seemingly never ending stamina and the ability to go the championship route of twelve rounds at the same energy level in each round without tiring during the fight. This kind of high impact aerobic training was pioneered by Ian many years ago during his own career and was a key component of his boxing success.

Like so many Canadians before him in many different fields of endeavor, Ian Clyde will now travel south to the United States to achieve success. He will begin by training promising young American boxers in Miami Beach. He is yet another fistic gem lost to Canada due to the egotism and infighting that governs professional boxing in Quebec, his home province. Let’s hope that his impending trip to Miami is a huge success. After many lean years, it looks like Ian Clyde is about to rise to the top again in his chosen profession. Of all of the many boxing stories currently in the news, this may be the best of all.