![]() It was allowed to remain open, but it put Steward in a difficult financial situation and he later rented space at a gym in Dearborn so his young fighters could train. The city closed the original Kronk Recreation Center – a hot, sweaty basement gym – after vandals stole its copper piping in 2006. He loved boxing – and boxers – but like the Motor City, the gym he adored fell on hard times. “A lot of these kids would be in the streets,” Steward once said. The gym for years was seen as a way to keep kids out of trouble in southwestern Detroit. “He saw the respect when they saw the colours.” “Lennox used to say when fighting as an amateur that everyone was afraid of the Kronk guys,” Steward once said. Steward trained, helped train or managed some of the greatest fighters – and some kids who just needed to get off the streets – of the past 40 years out of Kronk and in other facilities across the globe, putting fighters from many countries in red and gold trunks.īefore he fell ill, Steward also trained super-middleweight Adonis Stevenson, shaping the brawler from Longueuil, Que., into a more well-rounded boxer and helping him become a top contender in his weight class. “He brought the very, very best out of me,” Hearns once said of Steward. Hearns was knocked out in the 14th round by Sugar Ray Leonard in 1981 – Steward said that was the most painful experience of his life – and Hearns was on the short end of a three-round fight with Marvin Hagler in 1985 that is considered one of the best bouts in boxing history. The boxer known as Hitman was the first man to win titles in four divisions – he won five overall – and topped his 155-8 amateur record by going 61-5-1 with 48 knockouts as a pro.Įven though Steward had a lot of success with Hearns, some of his setbacks from his corner were among the most memorable in the sport. The Kronk’s first professional champion was Hilmer Kenty, a lightweight from Columbus, Ohio, who started training there in 1978 and won the WBA title two years later.īut It was Hearns who really put Kronk – and the trainer known as Manny – on the map. In first news conference with Dodgers, Shohei Ohtani dodges questions about Tommy John surgery.Halifax youth basketball league banning fans over ‘unexplainable’ spectator behaviour.Trae Young leads Hawks past Raptors 125-104.Boy, 11, dies after getting hit by puck during minor hockey practice in Quebec. ![]() “I had a great cheerleader in my corner, but not much of a trainer. “I was making a lot of mistakes and I wasn’t being told about it,” Lewis later said. When one such left was thrown in the second round and Lewis’ chin was unprotected, McCall threw and landed a powerful right, knocking the champion to the canvas at Wembley Arena so heavily that after Lewis returned to his feet following a count of six the referee Jose Guadalupe Garcia rightly rescued him.Īlready frustrated with the methods of his then-trainer Pepe Correa, the previously undefeated Lewis, after also considering the decorated Angelo Dundee, recruited none other than Steward to be Correa’s successor and oversee the rebuild required to make him the world’s leading heavyweight. Recognising Lewis remained reliant on his natural talent – since impressing in stopping Donovan 'Razor' Ruddock in two rounds he had laboured to victories over Tony Tucker, Bruno and Phil Jackson – Steward had prepared McCall to counter what he perceived to be Lewis’ lazy left hand. In McCall’s corner that night, however, working his 94th world title fight was Steward, as effective a motivator as he was technically and tactically aware. So heavily favoured was Lewis, then the WBC heavyweight champion, the night of 24 September 1994 that not only had McCall been installed as a 5/1 underdog – even amid an awareness of his success as a sparring partner for Mike Tyson and Frank Bruno – but that an agreement existed for Lewis to fight his great rival Riddick Bowe the following March, after which it was hoped that the winner would meet the imprisoned Tyson. With Lewis, as the trainer of his then-opponent Oliver McCall, Steward had even proved the inspiration behind the significant upset victory that ultimately proved Lewis’ making. If with Hearns, one of the revered Four Kings, he masterminded the evolution of a once unremarkable puncher into one of the most devastating in history, in the similarly great Lewis and Klitschko he rescued and rebuilt the careers of two heavyweight champions whose futures were under threat. 6 They joined forces after Steward masterminded Oliver McCall's, right, victory over Lewis Credit: Getty Images - Getty
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