Original Article: Comcast Sports Net
By Ryan Maquiñana
July 22, 2011
Barry Bonds and Marion Jones may be wary of the media nowadays, but a principal figure involved in their now infamous sagas has embraced it.
In this instance, however, the once-maligned Victor Conte is now a wanted man for the right reasons partially due to his recent results with professional boxers.
“This whole concept of old school boxing training, waking up and running six or seven miles and chopping wood…is just not nearly as effective as the technologies that are available today,” the BALCO founder says.
After working with prominent Bay Area fighters like Nonito Donaire, Andre Ward, and Karim Mayfield, Conte’s latest pupil is current IBF super lightweight champion Zab “Super” Judah, who fights this Saturday in Las Vegas (HBO, 7 p.m.).
“I think that the best Zab Judah is going to show up,” Conte says from his San Carlos Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Nutrioning (SNAC) headquarters. “I believe he has tremendous confidence. He certainly has the ability and the power to win the fight, and I think he will.”
Judah (41-6, 28 KOs), a two-division world titlist from Brooklyn, is an underdog heading into a Saturday unification showdown with WBA beltholder Amir Khan of England (25-1, 17 KOs), partially as a result of his tendency to tire out in the later rounds of big fights.
In fact, the outspoken southpaw used his vast repertoire of offensive skills to take early leads against Floyd Mayweather and Miguel Cotto before running out of gas as both fights progressed.
Enter Donaire. The San Leandro resident befriended Judah in Las Vegas and introduced him to the hypoxic machine, a high-altitude simulator and staple of Donaire’s workouts ever since he hooked up with Conte last year.
“Victor’s made me into a monster man,” Donaire declares, having shocked the boxing world with a two-round February destruction of formidable Fernando Montiel for the WBC and WBO bantamweight belts. “He’s done a lot for me with the things I do with him and Remi Korchmeny. My speed, my power, reflexes, you name it, are on another level from before, and Zab will see it, too.”
“I've been with Victor now for a while. We've just been working for a couple of months," Judah tells RingTV’s Lem Satterfield. “Victor Conte is more or less a conditioner and a motivator.”
