Abel Sanchez

Abel Sanchez is a Mexican boxing trainer. He is best known as the coach of Gennady Golovkin, and has trained other boxers such as Lupe Aquino, Terry Norris, and Murat Gassiev.^[1] Sanchez won the Futch-Condon Award in 2015. In 2000, he built a house in Big Bear, California, where he has conducted his fighters' training camps in recent years. The house is built at altitude, which helps athletes improve their aerobic conditioning.^[2] The house is nicknamed The Summit.^[3]

Sanchez was born in Tijuana and immigrated to San Marin, California with his family at the age of six. He owns a construction business. Sanchez briefly practiced kickboxing and boxing professionally but retired to focus on construction. He got into boxing training after sponsoring a local gym.The first three boxers he trained, Lupe Aquino, Terry Norris, and Orlin Norris, all became world champions. He went on to train other world champions during the 90s, like Miguel Ángel González, Paul Vaden, Frans Botha, and Nana Konadu.^[2] Sanchez suffered a heart attack in 2001, at which he point he stopped training. He built The Summit for use by other boxers and trainers. It remained largely unused until Oscar De La Hoya rented it to prepare for his bout with Manny Pacquiao.^[4] Shortly afterwards, Sanchez met with Gennady Golovkin and returned to training after being impressed with Golovkin's talent.^[5] Since then, he's worked with other active boxers like Sullivan Barrera, Murat Gassiev and Denis Shafikov.

References