Notebook: Shawn Porter launching career as trainer with Taylor
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Two-time welterweight titlist Shawn Porter, who since retiring at the end of 2021, has stayed involved in boxing as a ringside analyst and podcaster. Now he is adding trainer to his post fighting resume.
Porter will work his first corner on the Red Owl card on Friday (DAZN, 9 p.m. ET) in Houston.
Porter typically is a broadcaster on Red Owl events but Paulie Malignaggi will fill on for him because Porter will be in the corner as the head trainer for middleweight Marquis Taylor (17-1-2, 3 KOs), 31, of Houston, who faces Ivan Pandzic (15-2-1, 9 KOs), 33, of Rancho Cucamonga, California, in the 10-round main event.
“Coaching is something I always knew I would do,” Porter said. “I just didn't know who it would be with. I always had a spirit to teach and a spirit to coach.”
Porter met Taylor this year at a Red Owl card and later worked with him a Houston gym. That led to Porter training him long distance for a few months. But Taylor trained full time with Porter in Las Vegas, where Porter lives, for more than month to get ready for Friday’s fight, which saw Taylor change opponents when original foe Petr Khamukov recently withdrew due to a broken rib.
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