By Phil Santos – Overhandright.com: In addition to having an outstanding career in the ring John Scully is making his mark on the sport as a trainer. The Iceman has worked with WBC Light Heavyweight titlist Chad Dawson and currently trains IBO Super Bantamweight champ Mike Oliver, World Rated Cruiserweight Matt Godfrey and former Super Featherweight and Junior Welterweight title holder Israel Cardona. Scully has waged war in the ring, commentated for ESPN, and trained fighters to become champions. There isn’t much this guy hasn’t done in boxing. Scully is a student of the game and whether you’re talking old school fighters or current day boxing John Scully is as insightful as they come.
I recently caught up with the “Iceman” John Scully. We talked about Roy Jones Jr., the current state of boxing, steroids in the sport and what is on tap for him and his fighters in the near future. Here is what Scully had to say….
PS: When did you, or what made you, realize that you wanted to become a trainer?
ICE: Many people see me now as a new trainer to the game but the fact of the matter is that I have been working with amateur kids as far back as the 1980’s and in the mid to late 1990’s I had a group of four kids who really made their mark on the national level. I had one kid, for example, Dwayne Hairston, who scored a decision over current #1 contender Anthony Peterson in the National PAL finals at 85 pounds back in 1998 at Disneyworld.
Then in 2002, when I was in the middle of a frustrating run where I kept having fights fall out on me, I was asked about training Lawrence Clay-Bey. I was having trouble getting fights so I actually figured that I would train Clay until I secured a fight for myself. We had a good chemistry, though, and gradually I realized that I owed it to him to dedicate my time to him and once I did that it was a thing where I began picking up work with other fighters, too.
PS: How does your experience within the ring help you when training other fighters?
ICE: Without a doubt my having been an accomplished amateur and pro helps me as a trainer because with my particular style of training boxers it is a thing where it could only work if I had the experience that I do. I utilize my own experiences, the good and the bad ones, to help show the fighters I train what to do and what not to do. Maybe my greatest asset is the fact that although I didn’t necessarily realize my own potential as a fighter, I know why I didn’t, I know what my mistakes were, and there are definitely times when that knowledge comes in handy.
PS: When your fighter isn’t following your instructions or game plan during a fight what are some things that you might say to get through to them in your one minute between rounds?
ICE: Well, every fighter is so different. There’s no one way to reach all of them. That’s why you need to be in the gym together often and you need to be there paying especially close attention when they spar. You need to know the fighter better than he knows himself and I mean that literally. A good trainer in my opinion knows him fighter’s mental strengths and weaknesses better than the fighter himself knows them and he also knows how to get the most of him despite those weaknesses and because of those strengths
PS: Who do you consider to be the three best trainers in boxing? What separates them everyone else?
ICE: That’s a great but largely unanswerable question in my opinion. You have certain trainers that have excelled with certain fighters but you take them and put them with someone else and the magic is gone. People often have this image in their minds that there are trainers who are somehow so awesome that no matter what fighter they work with that fighter will end up as a world champion and that is just so ridiculous. There is an extreme amount of chemistry involved. I can tell you that I myself, for example, have dealt with a lot of boxers in different capacities and I am amazed at how easy it is to work with some guys, how certain fighters soak up knowledge and lessons while others are not nearly as reachable for you. You can take any trainer of an elite champion right now and I will bet you there is or has been a fighter under his wing who didn’t produce enough for him to even be ranked in the top thirty in the world.
It’s like in baseball. How come the guy who taught A-Rod to hit didn’t produce twenty other guys that went on to hit 500 home runs in their careers??
PS: Boxing had a great year in 2007 and 2008 is off to a nice start. We’ve seen Jones vs. Trinidad and we have Pavlik-Taylor II, Pacquiao-Marquez II and Vazquez-Marquez III to look forward too. Despite the great match-ups the sport is still barely on the radar of your typical sports fan. In your opinion what has to happen for the fight game to become relevant to the sports center generation?
ICE: In my opinion, the only way that boxing could possibly be brought back to the top of the food chain would be to get it back on network weekend TV for free. Take guys like John Duddy, Andy Lee and the Peterson brothers, Anthony and Lamont, for example, they have all gotten to be known to serious boxing fans through ESPN cards and the like but none of them are really extremely known to the casual boxing fan I don’t think. If this was back in the late 1980’s, though, they would all be featured every three months on free TV to millions of people across the country and the buzz would be so big. I mean, without network TV back in those days guys like Robin Blake, Frank The Animal Fletcher, Juan Roldan, Tony Sibson and a thousand other guys would be unknowns. Even Tyson first came up fighting Quick Tillis and Jesse Ferguson on ABC weekend fights and by the time he fought Trevor Berbick even casual fans were already so excited about him because they already knew who he was.
PS: You’ve been in camp with Roy Jones helping him prepare for fights, sparred with him, as well as fought on his undercard. Clearly you are familiar with his work. That said, what was your take on his fight with Tito?
ICE: Well, I put it like this. Back in the 1980’s you had Leonard, Hearns, and Duran considered old men in the game but the fact is that Roy Jones is not only older now than they were then but he is much faster, fresher looking, and sharper now than they were back then, too.
He looked very loose and crisp the other night but obviously you would have to see him in with a stronger, more active light heavyweight to get a real idea of where he is at at this point. The other night certainly was a showing that many didn’t think he had left in him, that’s for sure.
PS: Do you think Roy Jones can make another championship run at 175?
ICE: It would appear so. I mean, he is still Roy Jones Jr. any way that you slice it and if he is winning then he is back in the mix regardless.
PS: Staying on the subject of Roy; Both Jones and James Toney, another fighter that you know personally, have had issues with steroids. What are your feelings about fighters who use steroids and have any of your fighters ever approached you for advice on the subject?
ICE: To tell you the honest truth, I have never had any personal knowledge of a fighter taking steroids, never have seen it, never have been approached about it. If it is prevalent in my sport it has been kept a secret from me because I haven’t run across it. I suppose, though, if guys were really using them they wouldn’t necessarily come and let me in on the secret but, for me, in my experience, I haven’t been exposed to it whatsoever.
PS: What is on tap for you and your fighters in the next few months, any big fights lined up?
ICE: Right now I am working with Pito Cardona for his IBF Intercontinental title fight in Montreal next month with Antonin Decarie and then I have Matt Godfrey fighting in Germany on March 8 against Lujan Kraj for the mandatory title shot in the WBC at cruiserweight.
I also have an amateur lightweight named Joey Perez who is in our local Golden Gloves championship fight next Friday so we are pretty busy in the gym. There is also a chance that I might start working with several new fighters in the next few months, including a particular former three division world champion, but nothing is set in stone at all yet so there’s nothing definite to report on that end.
PS: You do some great work along side Joe Tessitore calling ESPN Classic Fights. How did that gig come about? How much prep work goes into calling one fight?
ICE: It was pretty simple, really. Joe called one day to ask if I would have interest in doing some fights and, of course, I said yes. It actually took zero preparation on my part because my job is only to tell what each fighter needs to do to win on that night as the fight is unfolding so it didn’t matter who won in the end, it didn’t matter too much what they had done previously in their careers. I just needed to watch the fight unfold and tell how each guy should or could adjust. It was a lot of fun to do, really, and if I ever get the chance to do any on-air analyzing again I will jump at it.
PS: Is there anything that you would like to add, or let fans know about, before we wrap up?
ICE: Well, as always, my book is always an issue with me. I am still working on it and if anyone ever wants to read an excerpt or ask any questions they can email me at IcemanDiaries@aol.com and I will be sure to personally respond.