Other cities escape tragedy

Detroit’s unhappy legacy not a tradition for boxers elsewhere .

By Fred Girard / The Detroit News

    Boxers in New York, Miami and Philadelphia, all cities with strong boxing traditions, have not shared the breadth of tragedy that has struck one in three of the original Kronk Gym boxers in Detroit.

    The Detroit News found 10 former Kronkers who died young — including six in homicides and another who succumbed to a drug overdose. Another eight went to prison, three for drug conspiracy.

    Asked how many of his former fighters were murder victims, the great Angelo Dundee, who trained and managed hundreds of amateurs and pros at Miami Beach’s Fifth Street Gym, said: “None, that I can think of.”

    How many are in prison?

    “None,” said Dundee, who is most famous for training Muhammad Ali. “Not that I’m goody-goody, not that I’m a priest. You luck out, I guess. Nobody can prevent a tragedy, if it’s going to happen.

    “But so many in one place? I can’t explain it. Don’t blame Emanuel Steward — he’s a good trainer, a good man. He works for his fighters.”

    Augie Scimeca, 67, longtime trainer/manager at Augie’s Gym on South Juniper Street in Philadelphia, said he had never heard of a string of tragedies like those in Detroit.

    “I’ve had fighters turn to drugs, but I’ve never had one die from them or go to prison,” he said. “I did train one fighter long ago, Gregory Tutt, who got killed long after he stopped training with me.”

    Shelly Finkel of New York, Mike Tyson’s manager, said two of his boxers have gone to prison — Tyson and Tony Ayala, both for rape — but none has been murdered or died young.

    “Boxing is a rough, tough sport, and I don’t mean just inside the ring,” he said. “You have to look at the environment these kids come from.”

    There have been other murder victims in the sport, of course — but no city matches Detroit’s tragic record. Just last December Ray “Lethal” Lathon had just finished a workout at the 12th and Park Gym in St. Louis when a masked intruder fired four shots into the back of his head.

    And in March, a New York grand jury indicted two Russian organized crime figures in connection with the abduction and murder of leading professional boxer Sergei Kobozev in 1995.