Trainer of the Year: Abel Sanchez and star pupil Gennady Golovkin never stop learning

High in the San Bernardino mountains at Big Bear, Calif., at a gym known as The Summit, a handful of boxers, mostly of Eastern European descent, are always hard at work hoping to become world class fighters.

They're in good hands. Able hands, if you will. The competent hands of Paste BN's 2015 Trainer of the year, Abel Sanchez.

Sanchez was selected mostly for his work in helping to turn Gennady Golovkin into the middleweight superstar knockout machine he has become. But he was also selected for his work in helping to mold his younger boxers into what he hopes will become champions.

Sanchez currently has eight fighters who train in his gym, with a combined record 206-7-1. They are led by 33-year-old Golovkin. The Kazakhstani known as "GGG" is 34-0 with 31 KOs, including the last 21 in a row. Golovkin, No. 3 in the Paste BN/Boxing Junkie pound-for-pound rankings, is coming off one of his most impressive victories, an eighth-round TKO in October against then-IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux, the Canadian who has an 84% knockout rate.

Triple G's victory was most impressive because instead of trying to take Lemieux out early, he followed to a tee the gameplan Sanchez had worked up for him, involving things they had worked on and practiced in the gym.

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Sanchez told Paste BN/Boxing Junkie that with Golovkin, and the others, the learning never stops.

"The day we stop learning, the day I stop giving him food for thought, and changing things up in the gym, is the day he's going to become stale, the day he's not going to look good," Sanchez said of Golovkin. "He's going to go out there and be the same guy and it's going to be boring for him. Every training camp I always put in a couple of wrinkles that I want to work on.

"(Against Lemieux), I wanted Gennady to box, I wanted him to keep distance, I wanted him to throw his punches at long range," he said. "If you noticed the body shots he was landing, he was landing them with a straight arm instead of with a bent arm like when he's in close. I wanted that not only to show a different side of him, but also for him to practice those things we're going to need in the future. And he did that to perfection."

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Golovkin was effective with his stiff left jab throughout the fight against Lemieux, and the trainer had to remind his fighter early not to worry about the crowd at Madison Square Garden and do exactly what they learned in the gym.

"We gain very little by going in there and knocking somebody out and not using those rounds to practice," Sanchez said, without a hint of condescension. "Unfortunately for (Lemieux) we exposed a lot of flaws that David has, but it just happens that some of the great fighters, like Ray Leonard, and Marvin Hagler, (and others) make fights look so easy that it looks like the other guy is a bum. It's not that, it's just that the (great fighters) are so superior."

Sanchez sees Golovkin as rapidly becoming one of those greats, and his young charges see Triple G as someone they want to emulate. And Sanchez loves having somebody like that around as a role model.

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"For a coach to have somebody in the gym who's a mentor and is consistently talking to these kids and trying to enthrall them and pass on his wisdom to them and tell them what it's like and what it feels like to be at that level, that just motivates these kids and they all seem to gravitate to him and want to talk to him and listen to what he's saying and watch him work out," Sanchez said.

In turn, his fighters love what being trained by Sanchez brings, especially since many are foreign fighters who are often out of their element in the U.S. He strives to make them feel as home at Big Bear as possible.

"I thank my management team that they were able to bring me to this great place, this is an absolute dream environment for any professional boxer that's serious about his career," Russian lightweight Denis Shafikov told Paste BN Sports through an interpreter last month. "The thought and detail of every aspect of our life here that's being put in by Abel is incredible. Abel is a tremendous trainer, a tremendous influence as a mentor. I don't want to say too much. I just want to . . . make sure that all this hard work that is being put in by Abel and I will be worthy of the training and the attention he's giving me. Because he's more than a trainer. He puts his mind and soul into every person who works here."

In addition to Shafikov (36-2-1, 19 KOs), Sanchez's stable includes cruiserweight Murat Gassiev (22-0, 16 KOs), welterweight Konstantin Ponomarev (29-0, 13 KOs), junior lightweight Ruslan Madiev (7-0, 3 KOs), and Cuban light heavyweight Sullivan Barrera (17-0, 12 KOs), who may be Andre Ward's next opponent. He also has Ghanian welterweight Fred Lawson (24-1, 20 KOs), and light heavyweight Nadjib Mohammedi (37-4, 23 KOs) of France.

Sanchez is especially bullish on Gassiev, the 22-year-old Russian, whose fight last month agaisnt undefeated Isiah Thomas ended in a no-contest after the fight was stopped following the third round when Thomas was unable to continue after a punch landed way after the bell.

"He's still a little high-strung, but that boy right there is the next Golovkin out of my gym," Sanchez said. "He'll grow into a heavyweight hopefully within the next couple years. I had him up to 217 (pounds) here in the gym just to test him, then brought him back down to 200. But I think he has a very, very bright future."

The next stop for Golovkin looks to be a unification bout against undefeated WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, the British gypsy boxer who took the title from Andy Lee in the United Kingdom last month. Golovkin and lineal middleweight champ Canelo Alvarez have tentatively agreed to an interim fight before they meet to decide the undisputed middleweight championship, possibly late in 2016.

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"I hope that it gets done and we can get that WBO title on the line when they fight," Sanchez said. "But it's up to (Saunders' promoter) Frank (Warren), and (Golovkin promoter) Tom (Loeffler), and hopefully they will iron those things out and put that together. It will be a great fight. He's a gold medalist for England, and he did exactly what he needed to do against Andy Lee. And while I thought he tired a little bit toward the end of the fight and Andy started coming back, he's a good young fighter who will be a test for Gennady."

Honorable mention

Eddy Reynoso: Canelo Alvarez's head trainer has done a superb job in 2015, especially in out-strategizing seven-time trainer of the year Freddie Roach in Canelo's Nov. 21 middleweight title victory against Miguel Cotto. Reynoso and his father, Chepo, have molded Canelo from the time he was 15, teaching the red-haired Mexican everything he knows about the sport. Eddy is a true student of boxing who has absorbed information from every great fighter and trainer in the history of the sport through his extensive video collection. Canelo has a very bright future because of the dedication and knowledge of Eddy Reynoso.

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: Say what you will about the father of the undefeated and recently retired superstar, but Floyd Sr. may be the best defensive coach in the sport. Nobody has been able to get to his son, and that's a tribute to the defensive mind-set the old man has instilled in his son. His wins against Manny Pacquiao and Andre Berto in 2015 were as much due to Floyd Sr.'s dedication to his craft as his kid's unmatched work ethic.

Peter Fury: Tyson Fury's uncle and trainer accomplished something few felt would happen: he guided Tyson to a stunning victory in November against Wladimir Klitschko, who had not been defeated in more than a decade. He gave his nephew a perfect game plan that seemed to befuddle Dr. Steelhammer and take him out of the fight and made sure Tyson came into the fight in the best shape of his life. Klitschko's failure to engage was mostly due to how Peter had Tyson attack the champ. So now Fury is the lineal heavyweight champion, and a fight against American WBC champion Deontay Wilder can't be far off, that is if Fury can defeat Klitschko in a rematch.

(Photo of Golovkin, left and Abel Sanchez by Al Bello, Getty Images)