Interview Dated 2005

Trainer Creed Fountain

If you were going to make a movie about boxing in Houston, and you were trying to find someone to represent the classic cornerman, you'd have to take a hard look at Creed Fountain. While he looks much younger than his 65 years, Fountain carries the quiet air of wisdom that can only come with nearly 40 years of experience both inside and outside the ring. He is currently training some of Houston's top pros, as well as a couple of promising young prospects. I caught up with him recently at the Prince Gym on the city's near north side.


HBS - Where are you from originally?

CF - I'm originally from Jackson, Mississippi.

HBS - How'd you end up here in Houston?

CF - Texas is the place to come. I actually came from Chicago. You know most Mississippians moved to Chicago and I went there at a young age so actually I'm a Houstonian because I came here when I was a teenager so I've been here all my life. That's how I wound up here in Texas because Texas was the place where jobs and things were.

HBS - How'd you first get involved in boxing?

CF - Well when I was growing up as a teenager down in Mississippi, Jackson we didn't have no boxing clubs so this guy used to get a bunch of us together and we used to just go at it with no hand wraps, nothing or gloves. I found out I could punch a little bit when they had a big ol' guy, they called him Cooter. He looked like about a 300-pounder. I guess I weighed about 135 pounds. He just put us in with anybody. I dropped Cooter with my big right hand, I dropped him. I said "Well, I can punch a little bit". So when I came to Texas I was around here about ten years before I got back involved. I got back involved in boxing I was about 25 years old I guess. The old gym, the old Texas Boxing Gym down on Louisiana Street I think it was and I got back into boxing and back to training to be a fighter and my career came to an end. I was training for a fight and coming off the Southwest Freeway. I got jammed from behind with a car and it popped my neck so I wasn't able to get away from punches. But at this time it was around '68 I guess and Johnny Baldwin had came into town. He was a 1968 bronze medal winner. He was a roommate with George Foreman and I was training with them, you know, we was all boxing together so after I got hurt and went back to the gym I found I couldn't get from punches. You know I was blocking everything with my head and I knew this wasn't the way to go so I told him, "Man, I'm going to get out of this", and he said "Ah, don't get out of this man, why don't you be my trainer?" I said "Well I don't know anything about training fighters." He said "Well, we'll learn together". So he got with his manager, a young guy by the name of Eddie Yates. I think Eddie's out of Mobile, Alabama, he said "No, no, don't use him", but Johnnie said "No, Creed's going to be my trainer." He said we were going to all work together. We were going to train together. So that's how I got started off of training. I've been at it ever since. I got away from it a few years and I guess it was in my blood and I got back so and I've been back ever since. Here I am.

HBS - That was around '69 or 70 which means you've been training people for more than 30 years.

CF - Oh yeah, about 35 or close to 40 really.

HBS - What would be your guess as to how many pro fighters you've trained over the years?

CF - I've worked with most every fighter that came through Houston including Reggie Johnson, "Big Foot" Martin, Ronnie Shields, Derwin Richards. I mean I worked with them all you know. I'm working under the hands of my friend, the late great Al "Potato Pie" Bolan, you know I worked under him for many, many years. We had Iran Barkely, Calvin Grove, we had all the big name fighters from the East Coast. Ulysses Boulware, his brother Vince Boulware, we had all the guys. You know I won't forget Mr. Tim Goodall, I want to leave him in there because I tutored under him as an amateur with Savannah Boxing Club. You know when Ronnie Shields first fought for the world title back in 1984, he fought Billy Costello in Kingston, New York. I was in the center of the ring with him. So I've been around a long time. I think Al Bolen, Potato Pie and myself were the only trainers here in Houston at that time that had been in a world championship corner. I guess I'd say I had a hand in mostly every fighter that came out of Houston other than Big George. My first fighter, which was Johnny "The Mad Man" Baldwin was a roommate of Big George back in 1968 in Mexico City in the Olympic Games.

HBS - What is it that keeps you in it after all these years? What is it you enjoy about the sport?

CF - I just like the sport. I tell myself all the time that I'm going to get out, you know I'm going to retire and I'm going to do things that a retired guy's supposed to do. Get your wife and get in the van, well I just sold the van, get in the car, say "Let's go riding, go somewhere", but I wind up telling her every morning I got to go to the gym. It's just something, I guess once you get into boxing it's just in your blood, man. I'll get mad with these guys "Ah, I quit. I'm through, man, you know. I'm through. I' ain't coming back tomorrow." I told all the guys at the end of the year that I was campaigning as a cut man now too so I said "Well you know if I get some cut jobs with some guys and work some corners as a cut man I'll have to get somebody to go with you". So far I haven't ran into anything but I just like the business and now I'm working with Yolanda Swindell and she really seems like she's really interested in fighting. You get people like that and it'll keep you around. You get guys that's like they don't want to come to the gym. They lie, you know, all the time. They're always late and things it just makes you want to go home, make you don't care. But then when you run into somebody, they seem to be hard at it, you say "Mmmm, somebody interested," you know, this is what you want to do. I just love it. I just love this, you know?.

HBS - I first met you about a year ago at the Canalito Gym and you were training a few different guys and let me ask you what their status is. You had (former N.A.B.F. Champion) Rockin' Rodney Moore, what's going on with him right now?

CF - Rockin' Rodney Moore, he's fighting. You know we just came back on the 5th of this month. He fought up in Baltimore. He fought a guy they called him the "Boogie Woogie Man". Rodney did real good in the fight but he lost a decision. I thought it should have been a draw but I wasn't judging the fight but I think it was an easy fight for Rodney to win. He jsut was being a little too cautious because of the 17-month layoff. He just was a little cautious and he just wouldn't let his hands go like he should. I think if he had of let his hands go like he should've he would have won the fight easy because the guy had never been in there with nobody like him. I mean the guy had a good record. He was like 15 knockouts and everything like that. He didn't come nowhere close to knocking Rodney out. Rodney come more close to knocking him out and I think he would have stopped it if he would have let his hands went but he was just a little too cautious. I guess he was worried about his stamina after being out for 17 months so he was just a little to cautious in there. He'd ought to just let everything go like I was asking him to do I think we would have won the fight going away. And it was a pretty good decision. It wasn't being no home town decision that night. The boy just stole the show with the little flurries that he was doing and my guy just never did get off with the flurries but I really have thumbs up for Rodney after 17 months layoff I thought he did real good in that fight. He could have did better. Me as a trainer, a fighter ain't never did nothing good enough because I got my old chief down at the fire department, says there's always room for improvement. So you do good, you've got to do a little bit better. Sebastian Hill, he went up to Oklahoma City, he didn't look too good up there.

HBS - You threw the towel in for him didn't you?

CF - You can't throw the towel in. They throw it back at you. You've got to get up on the ring apron. So I got up on the ring apron and stopped the fight. I'm not taking up for him or anything but he lost a lot of weight for that fight. I asked him not to take the fight but sometimes your financial status makes you do a lot of things that you don't want to do and he went up there and took the fight. But he had to drop a lot of weight for that fight and he just didn't have it in him that night. Anybody who saw him on T.V., everybody knows Sebastian could do better than he did but that's what happened.

HBS - Then there's "Buckshot" Vaughn.

CF - Buckshot, you know we went up to New York with Buckshot and he didn't pass the physical up there.

HBS - Why not?

CF - Some type of little cyst back behind his left ear there. I forget the name of this cyst and they wouldn't let him fight in New York so this doctor Barry Jordan up there he's a mean man. When he puts you on suspension man, he puts you on indefinite. He won't release Buckshot. Buckshot's been back here and we've been to doctors and urologists and everything and they say he can still fight. They didn't see no reason. There wasn't no high risk to him to continue his boxing career but the doctor up there, just, whatever these people say here he won't budge an inch. That's the thing with Buckshot right now. We're still fighting the doctor up there in New York trying to get a release and I don't know whether we'll ever get one or not.

HBS - But he'd still be cleared to fight in other states I would imagine?

CF - Well, not other states. They go along with it, but he's probably free to fight in Germany or a European country, somewhere like that.

HBS - So if one state says you're rejected the other states go along with it?

CF - Yeah, since they came out with this federal I.D. I think. Once they put you on suspension the other states mostly go with them states. Most of them just don't want to go against the other state. That's the way it looks to be to me. I know we had him booked here in Texas and Wayne Harrison called me back and said "Well, Larry Vaughn...." I said "I sent the doctor a letter up there, I sent letters up there to New York and I thought that maybe they'd cleared him". I didn't check and see if they cleared him. I just sent the letter from the other doctors and they tell him if they have any problem, call them, on the letters, and let the doctors discuss it, you know. But I don't guess he never did but I know that doctor, Barry Jordan up there he won't call nobody. I done left him message after message, message after message, to call me and talk to me but he never will call back. Our doctor here, Doctor Guerrero, he said he called him and he never would return his calls. He also read the letters from the other doctors and things. He said he didn't see no reason why Larry "Buckshot" Vaughn wouldn't be able to fight again. He don't have no higher risk than any of the other guys boxing today. Probably people look at boxing as a high risk to any other sports but I think the history more baseball players have probably got killed than boxers. You get hit in the head with a ball at 100 miles an hour, you know, that's why they started to wearing helmets at one time. i know they had more of them die in the game than fighters did, but everybody's looking at you get hit in the head and this and that so, I don't think boxing's that dangerous a sport. Boxing's something that people like myself got to want to do because it is a tough sport.

HBS - So you're working primarily with Yolanda Swindell right now and tell me a little bit about how you see her development and how she's coming along, what you're working on with her.

CF - I think Yolanda will be one of the top female fighters out there. I just take my time with her and well I think they got her listed at six fights now. I only say she have five fights now because we were fighting Mahfood down in Louisiana and in the second round they got tangled up and they fell and Yolanda fell on her shoulder and dislocated her shoulder. I called it a no contest but I think they gave Mahfood a win over her which it shouldn't be because we couldn't continue with that type of injury so I think it should have been a no contest. Some of the websites had it a no contest and some had Mahfood winning so I don't know how they got it in the record book. Myself I called it a no contest. I think she's going to be one of the top female fighters out there. A couple more fights with her and I'll fight all the girls out there. I'd like for her to fight somebody on her same level right now, 4,5,6,7 fights. In female you got to step up now because you've got female out there fighting with 40-something fights and they only have three or four fights so I'm learning that about females now so I'm going to have to start taking some of these fights with the other female fighters with many more fights than she have so we're just going to have to train hard and get in there and try to get them out of there and I thin she will be able to get them out of there. She trains real hard. She trains really hard.

HBS - Any particular skills that you're working on with her?

CF - Well we're just working on the basic things with her you know and her stamina mostly. I think if she gets her stamina up, which it is improving, very, very good you know. her stamina's improved much more better than it was and I think after she gets that down she can stay in there with any female fighter out there including Ali.

HBS - What are some of the major mistakes that you see fighters making?

CF - Well you know fighters makes a whole lot of mistakes. There ain't no personal mistakes you call out. Most of the fighters don't let their hands go enough and they take pictures of their work. If you hit a guy with a good right hand, follow up with the left hook, man. Take him out. A guy hits you with a good shot then he wants to stand there and look at it, take pictures and that's one of the main mistakes with a lot of guys. They set the table, they don't eat. You set the table, what you set the table for? You're supposed to eat after you set the table and go to work, you know? The main mistake with guys, they hit you with one shot you know. If you go back to Ali's record his knockouts weren't one big punch. It's an accumulation of punches and that's what you've got to do. You've just got to let your hands go from round to round, bell to bell.

HBS - Where did that expression come from, "You set the table, you've got to go eat." Did you make that up?

CF - No I didn't make it up. Teddy Atlas uses it a lot. It's the truth though. I mean you set the table it's time to go eat.

HBS - Anybody aside from Yolanda that you're working with a lot now?

CF - We've still got Rodney Moore and Rahim Day, he's a young fighter. Joe Day's young son we're working with him and we got Demestri Horton we're working with him, a big heavyweight. You know he's waiting for a pro debut. Rahim in his pro debut we were a little disappointed in his pro debut. He lost but he's a good fighter and I think he will be back. When he gets back in the gym I think he'll be ready to go. He's going to be a different kid when you see him next time.

HBS - You have some interesting techniques that you use like the ropes strung four ways inside the ring that the fighters have to duck under. I remember trying it a few years back and it was definitely not easy.

CF - That makes the guys think. You've got to get under that rope because you get under there and you're right next to the next one. So you've got to keep bouncing and moving. You've got to keep his head moving at all times. And that's what it is. You can't start no stationary target out there. You've got to keep your head going all the time. And we'll use the straight rope to make them get in and under you know. It's different techniques with different fighters. You can't use the same thing with all the same fighters. I guess you could see my fighters and they all might fight differently because you've got to work on different things with them. Some guys fight you see they all fight alike. You can look at some guys fight you know who trained that guy because of the way he fights but I look at guys and I guess you can say girls now and most of the time I just try to add to what they already do. I don't try to take nothing from them because guys have done stuff a long time. I just try to add to it, try to make it a little bit better.

HBS - Well you're over 65. You figure you've got a few more years left in you training fighters? Have you given yourself any kind of a timetable? Or if it's in your blood maybe you can't ever stop?

CF - Well I don't plan on slowing down right now. I don't feel like I'm 65. I get out and walk and run three miles every morning. I've got some guys probably around 45 ain't doing the things that I'm doing so as of right now I don't see no end to it because I don't know what age I feel because I feel good. They say age ain't nothing but a number you know and it's only good for highway signs and entries at the bank.