On October 10, 2001, 25 years ago today, boxing lost trainer and former fighter Eddie Futch. His death at the age of 90 also robbed us of countless fight recipes, gym fixes and stories that may as well have been outright magic. All of the names were there: Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Alexis Argüello. And so was Futch.

For decades, the stereotype of a boxing trainer was simple yet specific: small, grumpy, loud old guys willing to be crueler to their stable than the fighters’ own opponents were in order to forge tough, hard men. Hollywood and exaggerations of the Runyonesque musing of the 1920s certainly fed these thoughts, even if some were accurate.

Occasionally calm, quieter trainers with a steady personal hand emerged from the dank gyms. Ray Arcel, who worked with so many of Joe Louis’ ditched victims they called him “The Meat Wagon,” demanded focus in his corners. Arcel trained Roberto Durán and Benny Leonard, perhaps the two greatest lightweights of all time, and he joined forces with Futch to train Larry Holmes for the heavyweight champion’s 1982 title defense against Gerry Cooney. Holmes won by stoppage with one of the best corner teams a fighter could have.

Futch similarly chose to connect with his fighters and understand them personally rather than beat them into submission in the gym. The fighter generally associated with Futch is Joe Frazier, brought to Futch as a young Olympic gold medalist who worked in a slaughterhouse and fought like a slaughterhouse. Futch turned Frazier into the first man to defeat “The Greatest” himself, Muhammad Ali, in their unforgettable 1971 clash for the heavyweight title.

While others were dazzled by Ali’s handspeed and footwork, Futch not only recognized the holes in Ali’s game, he knew exactly how to exploit them. Time tends to be kind to deceased fighters, and even kinder to Ali, one of the most beloved of them all, even to the point of denying some of his in-ring faults. Futch once blasphemously said in The Ring: “Technically, Ali was more limited than a lot of fighters on the scene.”

Except Futch was right, and he proved it more than once. Two years after guiding Frazier to one of the greatest wins in boxing history, Futch passed on his secrets to Ken Norton for a 1973 showdown that left Ali with a broken jaw and his second pro defeat.

Norton later said: “I learned more in my two years with Eddie than I did in all of my other years of boxing combined.”

As Arcel demonstrated, fighting experience isn’t necessary to become a great trainer. It does help, though. Futch knew how suffocating a fighter’s hands feel with wraps and gloves clamped on, how the sting of sweat in the eyes can kill all rational thought.

After moving from Mississippi to Detroit as a child, Futch developed an interest in boxing after seeing a live fight involving Tiger Flowers, boxing’s first Black world middleweight champion. He eventually found his way into Detroit’s new Brewster-Wheeler Recreation Center, now the home to the city’s legendary Kronk Gym, which was filled with fighting talent and provided a starting point for its early stars like Joe Louis. Futch remembered a young man named Walker Smith, later known as Sugar Ray Robinson, following Louis to the gym.

Futch told The Ring: “[Joe Louis] used to struggle to win our club championship, that’s how many good fighters we had [at the Brewster Center].”

A heart murmur forced Futch out of the ring after a few dozen amateur fights, and he then became the director of the Brewster Center’s amateur program. He later claimed he sparred with Louis as the future heavyweight champion trained for at least one of his amateur titles, though Futch’s word was as good as gold and few ever questioned it.

The Brewster Center exposed Futch to countless fighters and styles, and his knowledge only expanded after he teamed up with Jackie McCoy in Los Angeles following a westward move in the 1950s. Within a few years Futch trained his first world champion, embattled welterweight Don Jordan, an unlikely champ if there ever were one.

Being a world champion’s corner would be a personal zenith for most trainers. For Futch, it was about more than the money or the prestige. Developing talent, Futch said, “was like polishing a raw stone to bring out the luster and brilliance.”

Futch spent decades developing talent, often seeing it where others didn’t. His ability to tap into a fighter’s wiring eventually saw him working with more than 20 world champions and becoming something of a hired gun, taking on difficult projects like a cantankerous Larry Holmes, awkward Michael Spinks and Alexis Argüello, who was going for his fourth world title in as many divisions against Aaron Pryor. Futch also trained excellent technicians Mike McCallum and Marlon Starling during the 1980s, and in 1990 he began training his final heavyweight champion, Riddick Bowe.

New York writer and cartoonist Bill Gallo, who knew Bowe (and everyone else on the New York boxing scene) from back in his amateur days, once asked Futch about Bowe’s rumored lack of toughness and gumption as a young prospect. Futch replied: “Believe me, this kid has plenty of heart.” Bowe proved him right by gutting out a win over Evander Holyfield for the heavyweight title in 1992.

Futch’s last project involved dethroning Roy Jones, Jr., the pound-for-pound king of the mid- to late-1990s. Montell Griffin, a light heavyweight with a pesky style and odd rhythm to his game who grew up in a boxing gym, linked up with Futch as he trained for WBC light heavyweight champion Jones, whose blinding speed and crushing power made him look unbeatable. Instead, over almost nine full rounds, Griffin used timing and deft counter-punching to actually win rounds and visibly frustrate Jones, who eventually forced Griffin to a knee before hitting him twice while down and disqualifying himself.

An illustrious career came to an unceremonious end when a disagreement between Griffin’s team and Futch led the trainer to retire just three years before he died.

Within a year of his death, the Boxing Writers Association of America added Futch’s name to their “Trainer of the Year” award, which Futch collected twice in the 90s. Futch’s apprentice and former fighter Freddie Roach stands as seven-time winner himself, and the celebration of his various living world champions resurrect Futch’s name from time to time. No amount of alchemy or sorcery can revive his lost knowledge, though.

Decades after Futch left the fight world behind, the full scope of the tremendous loss can now be understood. There were stories of backroom deals and gym wars that only he knew, ways of relating boxing knowledge that barking and growling can’t attain. The steady practicality and humanity of an Eddie Futch would be useful as boxing stumbles toward an unknown future as it once did.