S & C Coach Larry Wade Partners with Victory Sports & Entertainment

World-class Strength and Conditioning coach Larry Wade officially partners with Victory Sports & Entertainment, discusses working with Porter, Mosley, Jack and more

World-class strength and conditioning coach Larry Wade has officially partnered with boxing management firm Victory Sports and Entertainment, headed up by boxing trainer Mike Leanardi and boxing attorney Rick Torres.

Wade (below) comes from a track and field background, having been a decorated athlete in college and as a professional, culminating in medals at the Pan American Games and the World Athletics Championships in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

Since his retirement as a professional athlete, Wade worked with the Saudi Arabian national track and field team, winning 8 golds and 2 bronze medals at the Asian Games. He moved on swiftly up the coaching ranks, moving to Las Vegas to work at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, while also transitioning into boxing, becoming strength and conditioning coach for former Welterweight World Champion Shawn Porter.

Wade opened up about working with Porter, who was his first venture within professional boxing. “Shawn brought me on board in 2013 and I feel I was able to bring about a great change in him from a performance standpoint. That culminated in Shawn becoming world champion and that is an achievement I still hold at the very top of my achievements in my sporting career.

“Working with Shawn and his dad Kenny has been great over the years. They are good boxing people and I believe that we had an amazing camp for the Errol Spence, Jr. fight and that reflected in Shawn's performance. He rolled the years back and still showed that he's a top-level athlete.”

Recently, Wade made the decision to partner up with Victory Sports & Entertainment in order to better align him with the future stars of the sport.  VSE, along with Wade, is based in Las Vegas, and Wade has previously worked with fighters linked to VSE including, former Super Middleweight World Champion and Light Heavyweight World Champion Badou Jack and Shane Mosley, Jr., who should be back in the ring during the first quarter of 2020.

Wade discussed how he began working with Victory Sports. He said, “I have worked closely with Badou Jack for years and that is how I met Mike Leanardi who is a co-founder and partner in VSE. Mike is someone I think of really highly of and he is where I would send any of the boxers I work with if they needed management representation. Mike is a very good man and you couldn't meet a nicer, harder working person in boxing.

“I first met Shane Mosley, Jr. through his father when we worked together for the Ricardo Mayorga fight as he was training with Kenny Porter. I loved working with Shane and Shane, Jr. and I connected Shane, Jr. with Mike and Rick at VSE and now they have begun working together, so I'm very happy that we are all working in unison.”  By formally aligning himself with Victory Sports, Wade will be training fighters managed by Victory Sports, which will keep him working with current as well as the future stars of the sport.

States Wade, “The future is definitely bright and I am delighted to be working alongside the Victory Sports & Entertainment fighters going forward. There is so much potential amongst them that I believe that I will continue to be a part of world title successes.”

For their part, Victory Sports is extremely excited at the prospects of having their fighters work with Larry Wade. President of VSE, Rick Torres said,  “We feel Coach Larry is the preeminent strength and conditioning coach in the world today.  By providing our fighters the opportunity to work with Coach Larry we will ensure that fighters represented by Victory Sports will be among the best conditioned athletes boxing. This is a perk that no other management company can boast of providing to their fighters so we are extremely excited to announce this partnership.”