Max Ortiz/The Detroit News The door leading the entrance of the Emanuel Steward’s Kronk Gym, where fighters have trained, met success and tragedy. A third of the original 61 boxers have met misfortune.

Part 4 -- Success spoiled things

    But things did go wrong, right from the early 1980s.

    In 1984, Kronk’s DuJuan Johnson left the team for the drug trade and was murdered a month later. William “Caveman” Lee fought for a title, lost, and went out and robbed a bank.

    Thomas Hearns also experienced misfortune during this period. One of his brothers, Henry, who did not box for Kronk, was convicted of murdering his girlfriend in Thomas’ home in 1989. David Braxton was stripped of his North American Boxing Federation championship after testing positive for cocaine, and Tony Tucker turned to drugs after being a world champ. Manager Johnny Ace was gunned down in a drug dispute.

    In 1994 the great Superbad Mays, who had lost only twice in more than 240 fights, died at the age of 33 in a Detroit nursing home, destroyed by the malt liquor he drank every day since his teen years. Not long after, his best friend and fellow Kronk team-member Collier Bishop, 36, was shot to death in an alleged car-jacking incident.

Two more die in 2000

    Seven months into the Year 2000, two more were gone: former champ Duane Thomas, shot to death in a drug dispute; and little Stevie McCrory, dead at 36 of a lingering illness his family declines to discuss.

    Stuart Kirschenbaum, Michigan’s boxing commissioner for a decade and father figure to many fighters over the years, offered an explanation.

    “It’s what boxing attracts — all the hanger-ons that seem to nourish off these fighters, and bask in their glory for their short moment of fame,” he said. “These leeches and parasites are the people that lure a lot of these boxers into the trouble that they do get into. Kronk has had its fair share of these guys.”

Part 5 -- Can't blame Detroit