ETROIT — The wide array of sounds
associated with any active boxing gym — the
thud of a fighter beating a heavy bag, the click-click of a jump rope hitting the ground, the fastpaced, rhythmic smack of the speed bag — suddenly stopped. In the middle of the room, something important was about to happen, something no one wanted to miss, no matter what stage of their workout they were .
Jermain Taylor had just stepped into the ring.
Just as quickly as it got quiet, the room was a cacophony of sound again. Everyone in the small, crowded gym was on their feet — boxers and spectators alike — yelling and cheering as if Taylor were in an actual prizefight, not just his fourround, daily sparring session. The hot, humid and sweaty gym buzzed for the entire 12 minutes of the session, and the athletes were slow to return to their workouts when it was over; they would rather talk about how impressive Taylor looked.
When they did return to their ropes and bags, Taylor’s work seemed to have inspired them. The boxers hit the bags and weights with an energy that wasn’t there 20 minutes before, and the noise level rose again.
“This gym hasn’t had this kind of excitement since 1989,” said Emanuel Steward, who runs the gym and is overseeing his first training camp with Taylor.
This isn’t just any gym. It is the legendary Kronk Recreation Center near downtown Detroit. There was reason for the excitement in 1989 — that was the time Thomas Hearns was training in the same ring Taylor had just stepped out of for a superfight with Sugar Ray Leonard. And there is reason for the excitement now. Taylor is here training for his own big fight, one with Ronald “Winky” Wright on June 17 in Memphis that will give the winner universal recognition as the best middleweight in the world.
Whether it is because of Taylor’s motivation to beat Wright in the biggest fight of his career, a new trainer or the benefits of training in a high-energy environment that is steeped in tradition, one thing is certain: Three weeks into a six-week training camp, Taylor has never looked better. Spartan surroundings
From the outside, Kronk Recreation Center blends in with its southwest Detroit neighborhood, which isn’t one of the city’s more scenic areas, to be polite. Lots filled with overgrown weeds, boarded-up houses with broken windows, piles of old tires and mattresses on the street corners and potholes surround Kronk, a large red brick building that is fairly nondescript save a sign above the front door.
Even after walking through the front door and looking around at the pale blue cinder-block walls, it is hard to believe this is the place where Hearns, Hilmer Kenty, Aaron Pryor and dozens of others got their start.
But after passing the basketball court and walking down a flight of stairs into the basement, just one big room with a tiny locker room, the atmosphere quickly changes. Walk through the basement door, the one below a sign that reads “This door has led many to pain and fame,” and the dull, pale-blue recreation center explodes into the red and yellow primary colors that distinguish Kronk boxing around the world.
There isn’t much to this gym, only two heavy bags, one speed bag, a few ancient weight-training machines and a regulation-sized ring in the center.
“All you need to do is box, hit a heavy bag, hit a little bag and go home,” Steward said. “There’s not a lot to it. Those machines, everything that everyone else has, we don’t have it. We don’t need it. We don’t even have a personal trainer. Jermain trains like an old-time fighter from the 1950 s. And he fights like it.”
There is a sense of something more here, but even Steward, who has run the gym since 1971, can’t put his finger on it. “I haven’t figured it out yet,” he said. “It’s a special place. People box better here than they box anywhere else.”
The proof is on the walls.
Lining the four walls at eye level are pictures and newspaper clippings from all the champions who have trained at Kronk, and the collection could double nicely as a Hall of Fame exhibit.
Taylor admits he has never been long on boxing lore, but he said it’s impossible not to feel a sense of history here.
Especially when Ronald Hearns and Aaron Pryor Jr. are sparring not 5 feet from where Taylor is getting his hands wrapped.
“Tommy Hearns’ son, Aaron Pryor’s son, boxing together,” Taylor said. “That’s two legends right there ! It’s amazing to me. “ I feel the energy. Kronk gym is a champion’s gym. As soon as you walk in, you see all the champions on the wall, guys that held all the belts. It gives you energy. Then everyone on the sides hollering ‘Come on, champ !’ at you. It takes you to another level. It’s an amazing feeling.” King of the gym
This is a far different training camp from Taylor’s past camps, including the past two in Miami and Memphis, respectively, for Taylor’s two fights with Bernard Hopkins, and not just because Steward has replaced Patrick Burns, Taylor’s longtime trainer.
Unlike the previous gyms where Taylor has trained, Kronk is open to the public, and there were plenty of people interested in watching the middleweight champion train, including three members of Detroit’s police vice squad who stopped in on a lunch break Friday. Nearly 50 people were in the small gym for Taylor’s session Thursday, which raised the temperature and humidity to a stifling level but made for a raucous crowd when Taylor sparred with Detroit native Corey Johnson.
“Jermain is very comfortable in this environment, with the noise and heat and everyone hollering and screaming,” Steward said. “He’s happy here. [Muhammad ] Ali was like that, Sugar Ray Robinson was like that, Hearns and Leonard, too. [Taylor ] gets energy from the crowd. He feeds off that.”
“Detroit is the highest energy of any gym I’ve been to in my life,” Taylor said. “Everybody’s got egos, even in sparring. I love that. That’s how we started out in our little-bitty gym in Arkansas. Everyone played king of the gym. And if you got beat up, you weren’t king of the gym.”
Taylor wasn’t king of this gym when he first arrived May 1. The world champion quickly learned that titles, earned outside of Kronk, mean little in this basement. Andy Lee, a young fighter from Ireland who is living and training with Steward, fresh off Wladimir Klitschko’s training camp and in top shape, was a rusty Taylor’s first sparring partner.
“You can be middleweight champion of the world, but you have to come in here and prove it,” Steward said. “He was in Andy Lee’s gym. Andy was the king of the middleweights here.”
Not for long. It didn’t take long for Taylor to establish who was going to run Kronk, newcomer or not.
“I’ve got to show these guys that I am the champ,” Taylor said. “They weren’t just going to let me come in here and whup on them. But the other day, I think I became an official Kronk member. I’m in the club.” “Yeah, it’s his gym now,” Steward said.
Johnson learned that quickly Thursday.
Johnson isn’t an up-and-comer — he’s 33-3-2, and once had a shot at a world title in a loss to Kostya Tszyu — but Taylor dictated every moment of the four rounds they sparred.
At one point in the second round, Taylor nearly floored Johnson, despite the 16-ounce gloves and headgear, and had to back off and stop punching to avoid ending the session early.
A Taylor body punch sounded like a gunshot going off when it hit Johnson’s side and caused the entire room to gasp and cheer. Taylor rarely missed when he fired and is countering better than he has in his entire career.
A more fluid Taylor is also showing new combinations and a right hand that will be necessary against the southpaw Wright.
The most noticeable change in Taylor from previous camps, however, is his speed.
Taylor has always been fast, but now he is at a new level. Friday, against Sechew Powell, a natural 154-pounder who is 19-0 and on a championship track, Taylor was landing his counters almost before Powell’s initial shot.
At one point against Powell, just as against Johnson, Taylor backed off to avoid a knockdown. “He’s ready to fight [Wright ] tomorrow. Trust me,” Johnson said. “When he first came I tested him, like a real man. I wanted to test him, and he showed me something. He’s fast, explosive, moving good on his feet, he’s thinking. He’s probably the best sparring partner in the world.
“ I don’t think he’s going to have any problem with Winky. All he needs to do is move like he did today. He’s on the way to greatness.”
Johnson isn’t the only person in the gym who holds such a high opinion of Taylor.
Steward, who has also worked with the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard, Lennox Lewis and Oscar De La Hoya, among his 30-plus world champions, said he has been consistently amazed at the skills of Taylor. “I will say there’s never been a boxer in this gym that has shown more natural talent than Jermain Taylor,” Steward said. “I’ve never had someone with such a combination of speed and power. And I’ve never had such a pinpoint puncher.
“ This is how arrogant I’ve gotten after seeing him: I went from thinking Winky’s a 3-to-1 favorite to predicting a [Taylor ] knockout.” ‘He’s getting better’
It is clear that Taylor is comfortable and loose.
He smiles and laughs often during workouts and gets along with everyone in Steward’s camp.
It helps that two friends of his — Little Rock heavyweight Terry Smith, who is fighting on the Taylor-Wright undercard, and Jonathan Nelson, nephew of Taylor’s co-trainer and manager, Ozell Nelson — are also in camp. Taylor’s positive attitude outside the ring appears to translate to the ring.
“Every day he’s getting better and better,” said Billy Hearns, Thomas’ brother and one of the trainers at Kronk. “You look at Tuesday’s workout and it was better than Monday’s, and every day is like that. One thing about this gym is it’s like a family. When Jermain came down here, we welcomed him with open arms. He felt that. He’s a country boy, but he’s got some city in him now.”
Ozell Nelson, who ultimately pulled the trigger on the move to Detroit and Steward, said he knew that there were risks to changing the makeup of the team so close to a major fight. Nelson said it was a risk well worth taking for the results he’s seeing now.
“It’s working out perfect,” Nelson said. “If Jermain is feeling good about his environment, it makes him work harder. It makes him want it more. He looks forward to coming to the gym, because he never knows what he’s going to learn today.
“ Here, it’s all about boxing, which he loves. When he was first here, nobody asked for pictures, autographs, nothing. He’s world champion, and nobody asked for anything. When he stepped into the ring, he had to prove himself. Those guys weren’t giving up anything. Now, though, they see why he is the world champion.”
KRONK RECREATION CENTER LOCATION Southwest Detroit OPENED 1921 COLORS Red and yellow STEWARD YEARS Emanuel Steward joined Kronk in 1971 AMATEUR CHAMPIONS More than 55 amateur champions, 130 titles, three Olympic gold medals PROFESSIONAL CHAMPIONS 33 professional champions, 46 world championships, more than $ 175 million in prize winnings under Steward STEWARD TIMELINE 1971 Steward joins Kronk as the boxing program’s part-time manager / trainer, trains his brother James to a Detroit Golden Gloves title and the Kronk boxing team is born. 1972 Steward leaves a job at Detroit Edison to become a fulltime trainer at Kronk. 1977 Thomas Hearns wins national Golden Gloves. 1980 Hilmer Kenty wins a lightweight title, Kronk’s first professional world champion. Thomas Hearns wins the WBA welterweight title shortly after. 1996 Steward is inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame. 2001 A Kronk gym branch opens in London. 2006 Kronk survives a second attempt by the city to close down the recreation center. May 1, 2006 Jermain Taylor begins training camp at Kronk. WORLD CHAMPIONS TRAINED BY STEWARD OR AT KRONK Hilmer Kenty Thomas Hearns Muhammad Ali Milton McCrory Mike McCallum Dennis Andries Jimmy Paul Duane Thomas John David Jackson Michael Moorer Steve McCrory Gerald McClellan Wilfredo Benitez Sugar Ray Leonard Evander Holyfield Julio Cesar Chavez Lennox Lewis Oscar De La Hoya Wladimir Klitschko Jermain Taylor
