Controversy grows around closing of Joe Frazier’s Gym

Joe Frazier has developed a reputation for business failings that rival his status as a boxing legend. That much is confirmed by those closest to him.

But debate over the recent closure of Joe Frazier’s Gym, the North Philadelphia landmark at North Broad Street and Glenwood Avenue, has pitted a British boxer and her fiancé-manager against the 20th century sports icon’s business manager.

CLOSING OR RENOVATING

A March 30 press release announcing the boxing club’s permanent closure was refuted by Les Wolff, Frazier’s business manager. He said the recent shuttering of the gym at 2917 North Broad Street was for renovations only.

“The building is at least a century old. It’s easier to close down, clean out what could politely be called junk, and see what kind of renovations we need,” Wolff told The Temple News last week.

For the last five years, Wolff has been charged with reviving the staid condition of Frazier’s finances. At least one pair, whose relationship to the gym has come under question, has characterized Wolff as another in a line of Frazier abusers.British boxer Marianne Martson relocated from London to Philadelphia in February to train under Frazier and his son Marvis, a heavyweight contender who managed the daily operations of the gym.

“Marvis Frazier made it quite clear to me – and other fighters – that Frazier’s Gym would not be reopening at all,” Martson wrote The Temple News last week.

Gianluca “Rio” Di Caro, a self-proclaimed former music executive from the United Kingdom who is Marston’s manager and fiancé, said he has made it his mission to make profitable again. Joe Frazier’s Gym, a former dance hall that was first made a training facility for Frazier in 1968, under the name Cloverlay Gym.

BUSINESS FAILINGS

Frazier has long been considered the fiscal failure from the top tier of the golden age of boxing. The biggest names in boxing history are Frazier contemporaries, George Foreman, Larry Holmes and his longtime rival Muhammad Ali, all of whom are millionaires. Up until recent months, Frazier had been living in a rundown, one-room apartment over his gym in central North Philadelphia.

“He chooses the wrong people all the time. He really just doesn’t realize it,” Di Caro said. “As long as he has a bit of money in his pocket, he doesn’t seem to care beyond that.”

Wolff acknowledges Frazier has been taken advantage of financially before, but says he is trying to right the ship. Di Caro maintains that Wolff is another in the long line of “leeches.”

“Les is dead honest about his motivation: money,” Di Caro said. “But, with all the things he talks about, the man seems incapable of creating wealth for Joe.”

For his part, Wolff had been announcing Joe Frazier would revive his R&B career on an April 29 episode of the new CBS celebrity-reality show Secret Talents of the Stars. The show was canceled last week after one episode. Frazier is being featured in two documentaries and is reviewing an offer from director Penny Marshall and other lucrative sponsorships, Wolff said.

They are all negotiations that either Di Caro calls complete fabrications or for which he takes credit.

At least one of the appearances Wolff mentioned – a stop on the Howard Stern radio show next week – could be confirmed. He’ll appear Tuesday, Wolff said, as part of the first travel Frazier has done in months, after recent surgery and subsequent recovery.

One voice that has remained silent on the issue is Joe Frazier himself.

He underwent nearly seven hours of surgery on Feb. 20, the sixth surgery related to a 2002 car accident that happened in front of his gym, and is still suffering the effects, Wolff said. The accident was never reported to Philadelphia Police, according to a 2006 inquiry by the New York Times.

Marvis Frazier, too, is quick to defer questions to Wolff.

“It’s business. I have nothing but good things to say about Les Wolff,” the younger Frazier said. “Of course I would love to see the gym stay open, but it’s not mine. It’s my father’s place. It’s Joe Frazier’s Gym, not Marvis Frazier’s Gym.”

“I don’t really understand Joe and Marvis’s relationship,” Di Caro said.

So the fight ensues, at least on one side.

“Mr. Di Caro is a non-entity to me,” Wolff said.

SELLING THE GYM

The gym has been put up for sale, as both Marvis Frazier and Wolff have confirmed.

Rumors that a potential buyer could be interested in developing student housing for Temple’s nearby medical school have also surfaced.

But, Di Caro said it’s a ploy by Wolff to scam more money out of Frazier. Of any deal Wolff negotiates for Frazier, he gets just 40 percent, Di Caro said. Wolff gets 20 percent and others who Di Caro say are taking advantage of Frazier get similar cuts, Di Caro said.

“Les bullies him for some reason,” he said.

“I don’t know who Mr. Di Caro is or where he comes from,” Wolff said. “I would assume he has his own agenda.”

Claims of Joe Frazier’s Gym financial struggles are exaggerated, Wolff said.

In November, lawyers representing the City of Philadelphia announced their intentions to sue the gym for $127,000 in owed taxes, labeling it one of the city’s biggest tax delinquents, as first reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

But now all of the gym’s federal, state and municipal taxes are being adequately managed, Wolff said.

“Everything is either paid or on a payment plan,” he said. “It’s being handled.”

Wolff is quick to say they are exploring many options, but selling the gym might be the most sensible, Wolff said.

“The renovations would cost at least $6 million,” Wolff said. “Joe should be worth $100 million. He’s not.”

“Money has seemed to have gone missing,” Di Caro said.

On March 29, Di Caro said he was in a meeting about the financial stability of the gym with Marvis Frazier, other staff and Wolff, Di Caro said. The next day Di Caro received a call from Joe Frazier, saying Di Caro’s services wouldn’t be needed any more, he said. Di Caro had been offering publicity and promotional services to the gym since moving to Philadelphia indefinitely late last year, Di Caro said, though that role has been disputed by Wolff. Marvis declined to comment on the relationship Di Caro had with the gym.

Frazier, who didn’t return a call made by The Temple News, is a supporter of Di Caro’s work, Di Caro said.

“Joe has been a big supporter of saving the gym,” Di Caro said.

Still, the day after that meeting – Sunday, March 31 – the gym was closed, Wolff says for renovations, Di Caro says forever.

“Selling the gym is not closing the gym. Joe Frazier’s Gym will not close. Joe Frazier is that gym,” Wolff said. “I know people put a lot of emotional attachment on buildings, but my attachments are to people.”

Those running Joe Frazier’s Gym should be pushing to make it a historic landmark, Di Caro said.

“That doesn’t fit Les’s plan, though,” Di Caro said.Di Caro, a newcomer to the gym, maintains that his motives in the dispute aren’t for anything more than to right a wrong for friends he says he has made.

“Marvis is a genuine person, and Joe is loveable rogue,” Di Caro said.

But he’s finding it difficult.“I won’t drop this,” he said. “I will not drop this.”

Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu.

Joe Frazier’s Gym closes for renovations

Joe Frazier’s Gym, a North Philadelphia landmark at 2917 N. Broad St. above Glenwood Avenue for more than 40 years, has been closed for renovations.

The closure will last at least three months, said Leslie Wolff, Joe Frazier’s business manager.

“The building is at least a century old,” Wolff said. “It’s easier to close down, clean out what could politely be called junk, and see what kind of renovations we need.”

No exact date has been placed on the building being reopened, but the hope is three months from now, Wolff said. Currently contractors are evaluating the historic building, which was a dance hall before Frazier made it a gym in 1969.

There were fears of the gym permanent closing, including a falsified press release originally used by the popular blog Philebrity.com and The Temple News. It didn’t come from Joe Frazier’s Gym, said Wolff, who quickly dispelled the rumor.

“There will always be a Joe Frazier’s Gym,” he said.

Frazier, the former heavyweight champion of the world and longtime rival of Muhammad Ali, lived in a small apartment above the gym, while he toured throughout the country, but has since made a permanent home elsewhere in the region, Wolff said.

“He had been living there off and on, more off,” Wolff said. “But in the last, say, four months, he has lived elsewhere.”

The gym opened in 1969, a few years after Joe turned professional in August 1965. Joe was born the youngest of 12 children on Jan. 12, 1944 in Beaufort, S.C., but made Philadelphia his home. He won a gold medal at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, before beginning one of the most celebrated careers in boxing history, earning a 32-4-1 career record and winning 27 of his victories by knockout. His three matches against Ali in the 1970s are often considered among the best in sports history.

His son Marvis, also a former boxer, handled the daily operations of the gym, which served as much a community center and outreach program as a training facility.

“It’s not always about boxing,” Marvis told The Temple News last October. “We’re trying to change young men.”

Marvis trained at the now closed gym, also, launching his career there in 1975 and returning to serve as general manager after he retired in 1990. Despite success as an amateur, his professional boxing career was less memorable. Aside from his responsibilities at the gym, Marvis doubled as a Delaware reverend, as The Temple News reported.

“This is the ministry God has given me,” Marvis said of the gym and working with young aspiring boxers.

In retirement, the Fraziers were a draw for top young boxing talent even beyond the region. In February, British featherweight Marianne Marston moved from London to Philadelphia in order that she might train under Joe. Another top female boxer that has been forced to find a new boxing home is Diane Moses, originally from Jacksonville, Fla. Jayson Sia, mentioned in the release, moved from Los Angeles to train.

Marston is returning to London and the others have found different boxing homes, Wolff said. When the gym reopens, there are plans for it to refocus on training professional fighters.

“Joe is one of a few real scientists of the sport,” Wolff said. “Joe Frazier’s Gym can be anywhere in the world. It isn’t the building, it’s Joe.”

Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu.

Joe Frazier’s Gym closes its doors

This article was updated here.

Joe Frazier’s Gym has been closed, likely forever, according to a press release from the boxing and training facility in North Philadelphia.

Frazier, the former heavyweight champion of the world and longtime rival of Muhammad Ali, lived in a small apartment above the gym, while he toured throughout the country. His son Marvis, also a former boxer, handled the daily operations of the gym, which served as much a community center and outreach program as a training facility.

“It’s not always about boxing,” Marvis told The Temple News last October. “We’re trying to change young men.”

The gym opened at 2917 N. Broad St., above Glenwood Avenue, in 1969, a few years after Joe turned professional in August 1965. Joe was born the youngest of 12 children on Jan. 12, 1944 in Beaufort, S.C., but made Philadelphia his home. He won a gold medal at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, before beginning one of the most celebrated careers in boxing history, earning a 32-4-1 career record and winning 27 of his victories by knockout. His three matches against Ali in the 1970s are often considered among the best in sports history.

“Joe Frazier’s name means something to people,” Marvis said last fall.

Marvis trained at the now closed gym, also, launching his career there in 1975 and returning to serve as general manager after he retired in 1990. Despite success as an amateur, his professional boxing career was less memorable. Aside from his responsibilities at the gym, Marvis doubled as a Delaware reverend, as The Temple News reported.

“This is the ministry God has given me,” Marvis said.

In retirement, the Frazier’s were a draw for top young boxing talent even beyond the region. In February, British featherweight Marianne Marston moved from London to Philadelphia in order that she might train under Joe. Another top female boxer that has been forced to find a new boxing home is Diane Moses, originally from Jacksonville, Fla. Jayson Sia, mentioned in the release, moved from Los Angeles to train.

“The gym is closed, it’s over.” said Marvis Frazier, Joe’s son, in the release.

The official date the gym was shut down was March 30, according to the release. Calls to the gym by The Temple News were not returned.

Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu.

Professional fighting a combination of moves

Senior film major Matt Makowski is a nice guy outside of the cage. His demeanor is polite, soft-spoken and gentle – but those who have squared off against him would probably say otherwise.

Makowski has an undefeated professional record (2-0) in mixed martial arts – an all-encompassing fighting style that combines wrestling, Muay Thai kickboxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – which has grown popular in the mainstream due to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Makowski recently fought and won on the undercard of Showtime’s EliteXC pay-per-view.

“MMA is the greatest sport in the world, and it is also the greatest display of physical and mental talent, because to be a world class MMA fighter, you have to be incredible in all of these separate categories [of fighting], like kickboxing and wrestling and jiu-jitsu,” Makowski said.

Makowski balances his passion-turned-profession with studying film. He said he chose Temple because it would meet his academic needs, while being close to Philadelphia’s rich martial arts culture. After doing some research, he found the Philadelphia Mixed Martial Arts Academy, which played into his decision to come to Temple.

“Initially it looked like [Philly MMA] had everything that I wanted,” he said. “They had MMA, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling and instructors that were fighters.”

He joined Philly MMA during the first week of his freshman year. He won his first amateur MMA fight six months later, and went professional last July.

“Matt’s just the kind of guy who trains so hard and believes in himself and his trainers, because if you put the work in and put the training in and believe in what you’re doing, then you know if you have already won or lost,” said Jackson Galko, an instructor at Philly MMA who also competes in Muay Thai and MMA. “If you go in and do your best, then that is really all that anybody could ask for – that’s Matt. He just outworks people and has a great team of trainers behind him.”

Makowski attributed his success to Philly MMA’s world-class training. He credited his head coaches –Rigel Balsamico, a two-time Muay Thai world champion with more than 30 professional fights; Wilson Reis, a world-champion black belt from Brazil who is undefeated in mixed martial arts; and Brad Daddis, who is both a pro MMA fighter and founder of Philly MMA – for molding him into the warrior that is he today. They demand excellence from him every day.

“The techniques that [our pro fighters] are using are the same things that we are teaching in class to regular students,” Galko said. “There is no distinction between what we’re teaching to the people doing it for fun or the pro fighters. We definitely win three out of four fights on average, and it’s due to the hard work of our coaches in preparing us, and the work ethic of the guys on the team.”
Galko said that there are several Temple students who train at Philly MMA as an alternative to the weight room. Many go on to develop healthier living habits, compete in amateur tournaments, and win, he said.

Fighting with a smart game plan is just as important as the physical aspect, Makowski said.

“His striking is his strong point, but, for example, in his last fight he fought a guy with a little more striking experience, a longer reach and possibly a better striker than he was, and Matt knew that he had the tools to finish it on ground,” Galka said.
Makowski said that the free hotel room at the Trump Taj Mahal, the post-fight interviews with Showtime cameramen and the thrill of fighting in front of 2,000 to 3,000 people are all aspects of professional fighting that he hopes to experience again, but he plans on waiting until he graduates in May for his next bout.

A professional fight takes two to three months of intense training, and the act of managing a professional MMA career while working toward a college degree can be a battle of its own. Makowski keeps busy by training and instructing at Philly MMA, as well as its sister school in Cherry Hill, N.J., for two to three hours a night, six days a week.

“I had to miss class for a fight and I was trying to explain it to my teacher,” Makowski said. “I asked her ‘ever hear of mixed martial arts?’ And it’s so hard, because when you say ‘ultimate fighting,’ they automatically think ‘Oh, you’re crazy.’”

Though he may have to put his career on hold, Makowski has high hopes for his future in MMA.

“I more or less want to enjoy where I am – I want to enjoy fighting and make a living out if it,” he said. “One day, [being] a world champion would be great, and the UFC is sort of where it’s at.”

Jimmy Viola can be reached at jimmy.viola@temple.edu.

Pending Blue Horizon sale is only for looks

If you don’t involve yourself in Philadelphia boxing, then you’ll never find a boxer you’ve heard of fighting at the 1,200-seat Blue Horizon.

The money isn’t there.

Instead, you’ll find two fighters respectfully trying to beat the hell out of each other for a couple hundred bucks. For purists, there simply isn’t any other place like it.

If you’re not interested, you also probably missed last month’s announcement that part-owner Vernoca Michael was looking to sell the famed boxing venue for $6.5 million. But it has sat, as the mansion has sat in the 1300 block of North Broad Street, near Thompson Street, for more than 140 years.

Chances are that Michael was just testing her opportunities. She can’t let the last great vestige of Philadelphia’s boxing prime in the 1960s and 1970s die.

That it has survived, unlike others, is likely why a Sports Illustrated article called the Blue the last great boxing venue in the country and one of the few left in the world. Or maybe it was its atmosphere – a mansion from the 1860s still without air-conditioning – that garnered it enough longstanding praise for The Ring, a magazine that has been the self-proclaimed “Bible of Boxing” since 1922, to call it the best spot to see a boxing match in the entire world.

Michael became the first black female boxing promoter in 1998 and created her boxing promotions company to carry on the legacy of boxing in the venue. A woman. A black woman saved boxing in this town. She wouldn’t leave the Blue in the wrong hands, $6.5 million or not.

There is no questioning Philadelphia’s role in boxing history, having been home to old heads like Jack O’Brien to middleweight Bernard Hopkins to former world heavyweight champions Sonny Liston and Joe Frazier. Blue Horizon itself boasts producing more than 30 world champion boxers and has been seen on most major stations in the world for boxing including USA and ESPN.

But you’ve never heard of it. And no one seems to be buying it.

Bernard Fernandez has covered boxing for the Philadelphia Daily News for more than two decades. All the accolades and legend aside, Fernandez might know why it’s a tough sell.

“They basically have to pack the place,” he said. “No television contracts, no big name fighters on the card.”

There was a time in Philadelphia boxing when the Wachovia Spectrum held heavily promoted fights with television contracts and big sponsors, Fernandez said. Their interests went elsewhere, not wanting to compete with Las Vegas casinos and larger arenas in larger markets. Suddenly, young Philly fighters had to go elsewhere to get paydays worth the beatings.

Which is a shame, considering what Philadelphia has meant to boxing in this world.

“Really, Philadelphia per capita probably churns out more fighters than any other city,” Fernandez said. “If a promoter can say he is a ‘Philadelphia fighter,’ you can expect that guy to be tough as nails, that he can throw a left hook because Philadelphia fighters come out of the womb knowing how to throw a left hook.”

Whether that can continue, Fernandez said, is yet to be determined by anyone.

“If you go to a NASCAR race and the cars go by you at 200 miles per hour, you can feel the power,” Fernandez said. “You can reach out and touch them.”

Doubt lingers on whether that can continue to happen for boxing fans in Philadelphia much longer.

Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu.

Boxing legend and son fight different type of foe

Marvis Frazier has always had to live up to expectations.

He was the boxing son of a boxing legend. Names carry a lot of weight. Sometimes even enough to crush a heavyweight boxer with big hands and big plans. It might have been nothing more than God and a humble self-awareness that has allowed him to thrive in a different mission.

THE LEGEND OF SMOKIN’ JOE

“Joe Frazier’s name means something to people,” Marvis said of his father and former heavyweight champion.

Indeed, it is a name everyone knows, though perhaps not everyone can place. Joe Frazier once formed what is easily one of the greatest rivalries in the history of sport. The three bouts Frazier had with Muhammad Ali in the 1970s are regularly touted as some of the finest in boxing history.

A SON FALLS SHORT IN GROWTH

Marvis, now 47, was a celebrated young fighter in the late 1970s. Despite success as an amateur, his professional boxing career is largely defined by two losses. He was pummeled by Larry Holmes in 1983 and was dropped in 1986 by an upcoming 19-year-old fighter named Mike Tyson. Yet, as with most people defined by moments, he is so much more than that.

He is barrel-chested but deceptively so. There is a hesitance in his speech, so characteristic of boxers, but his appears to be rooted less in those right hooks he got from Holmes 15 years ago and more in humility. Like how could any wisdom come from an old Philly boxer holed up in an office in central North Philadelphia. It comes, though. It comes.
IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT BOXING

Marvis holds the Bible close to his heart. He splits his time between Philadelphia boxing icon and Delaware reverend. There is a stripe of white that he wears as an accessory in his black hair. He works in a building that bears his father’s name and sits in an office cluttered with his father’s memorabilia. He shapes lives.

Marvis began managing Joe Frazier’s Gym not long after he retired from the ring in 1990, the same gym in which he started his own boxing career in 1975. The gym, which opened at 2917 N. Broad St. in 1969, is as much a community center as any YMCA or church rectory could ever be.

“We’re trying to change young men,” Marvis said last week. The thin and twitchy boy who wore a black hood over his face one cold morning last week before being let into the gym might agree. He shadowboxed with great concentration, as if his being alone in the ring was no reason to think he had nothing to fight at that particular moment in his life. Joe and Marvis Frazier taught him how.

“It’s not always about boxing,” he said. “We’ve had guys become accountants, computer programmers.”

Some are desperate, others are just looking for something, but they all come out different, he explained.

While Joe Frazier tours, Marvis handles the daily operations of a gym that is perhaps more community outreach than gloves and headgear.

Joe Frazier’s Gym is nothing Marvis takes lightly.

“This,” he said with a wave of his hand and a nod of his head, “is the ministry God has given me.”

Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu

Blue Horizon: Knocking out the competition for 142 years

A castle-like dwelling sits on the corner of Broad and Master streets in North Philadelphia, its facade resembling a vacant show theater during the day, and as night falls, an eerie haunted house. From the outside, the building seems lifeless. But once inside, it’s clear why this building’s 150-year-plus history is legendary.

So legendary in fact, that its name speaks for itself.The “Legendary Blue Horizon” has been a staple of Philadelphia culture since its construction in 1865. “The Blue,” as it is affectionately known, has hosted some of the city’s most notable sporting and social events.

The multipurpose venue is equipped with a ballroom and auditorium. The former estate’s three floors have hosted everything from weddings to concerts to trade shows, but it was boxing that turned this diamond in the rough into the gem it is today.Beginning in 1961, The Blue has hosted championship bouts for the USBA/IBF Super Middleweight, IBC and NABC state titles and the Hispanic championships.

Young up-and-comers as well as accomplished veterans have participated in fights inside the Blue’s CarMichael Auditorium. Fighters such as Fast Eddie Chambers, Jose Reyes, Yusef Mack and Bert Cooper have all helped to maintain what is regarded today as one of the last remaining old-time boxing arenas.

But the book on this historic building was nearly closed a decade ago. That is, until
Veronica Michael stepped in and opened it back up again.

Michael, current co-owner, decided to purchase the building in 1994 when its closing seemed imminent. Through her community-based organization, Nia Kuumba, and the Avenue of the Arts city-based program, Michael’s plan called for major restorations and renovations to the building.

“At the time I was raising children and I felt that the youth needed to have somewhere to bring them off of the streets and something to participate in,” Michael said.

Even as renovations to the building improved its facilities, what was once one of the most celebrated boxing rings in the city was slowly becoming just a thing of the past. So after four years of owning the venue, in 1998 Michael decided to do something about the legend that once was, and, she argued, still could be. She became the first black boxing promoter when she created her own promotions company to spread word about The Blue.

“Many people didn’t expect for this to last for a long time,” Michael said. “They didn’t expect an African American female would be able to be involved in such a career, let alone sustain it.”

Michael also teaches a sports administration class at Temple. She often requires students in her class to help coordinate events at The Blue, not only relieving her of the stress behind running a major boxing venue, but to provide them with hands on experience – just not in the ring itself.

Chris Thomas, a 23-year-old graduate student, seized the opportunity to participate with the venue. “To get to come and be a part of some of the things that take place here is amazing,” Thomas said.

“The experience we gain through helping
will come in handy one day.”

The experiences that Thomas speaks of have been embedded in the minds of those that have been frequenting the Blue for generations.

John DiSanto, founder of Phillyboxinghistory.com, has been an audience member at The Blue more times than he can remember. DiSanto has covered boxing in Philadelphia for more than 35 years and knows that for people in the know, The Blue and boxing are practically synonymous.

“There have been so many great fights here over the years,” DiSanto said. “There aren’t many arenas left where you can go and get that feeling of intimacy that helped make boxing the sport it is today.”

Highly respected publications have featured The Blue on their pages, including “Sports Illustrated,” “Maxim,” the “Washington Post” and the “Chicago Tribune.” The Ring Magazine, dubbed the “Bible of Boxing,” called the Blue Horizon the best venue in the world to watch a fight.

Fights there have been televised on stations like ESPN 2, USA, ABC and CBS.

Despite national media attention and helping to put The Blue on national “Who’s Who” lists in boxing, Michael’s most crowning achievement isn’t about the venue itself, but rather its decades-old fighting passion. “I’m just glad to be able to let young people know that if you put your mind and dreams to work that achieving is more that just pie in the sky,” she said.

Jeremy Drummond can be reached at jdrum@temple.edu.