Chances are pretty good that, if you asked a boxing fan to name the most famous boxing gym of them all, the answer you would get would either be the 5th Street Gym in Miami, the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles, or the Kronk Gym in Detroit. And the original Kronk Gym is set to be reopened, this in a building where the one and only Joe Louis once trained.
Images (c) Kronk Gym
The Brewster Wheeler Recreation Center in Detroit will be the home of the reopened gym. The room that housed the gym in which “The Brown Bomber” trained is still there in the building’s basement. The Center was almost demolished 10 years or so ago, only for it to be saved at the last minute; the building and its history to be saved.
“This is the city we’re building”—Mayor Duggan on preserving legacy
Mayor Mike Duggan spoke about the importance of keeping the history of the Kronk Gym alive.
“It was days away from being demolished,” Duggan said of the Center. “We ended the demolition contract and said, ‘let’s see what we can do.’ Can you imagine a more perfect use for this building than the Kronk Gym? This is the city we’re building, a city where we honor our history and we keep it alive.”
Kronk’s legacy lives on—from Hearns to future champions
The Kronk Gym of course came to enjoy real fame and celebration when great trainer Emanuel Steward opened its doors on Detroit’s tough southwest side, this in 1971. In time, over the years, world champions became superstars, with the likes of Thomas Hearns, Michael Moorer, Gerald McClellan, Hilmer Kenty (Kronk’s very first world champion), and later, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, and Naseem Hamed, all representing Kronk.
Now, in the near future, fighters will have the opportunity to train in the very room in which the immortal Joe Louis refined his craft and also sweated and pushed himself as hard as he could. Talk about an inspirational place for a boxer to go to work in! Let’s all hope the new project finds nothing but huge success.
