GUEST COLUMN
How the magic of boxing can make us feel young again
How John Scully travels back in time
FORMER IBF lightheavyweight champ William Guthrie and I used to frequently talk about getting all the guys from our era together at some point and, finally, in December of 2014 I put together the first reunion in Las Vegas. It was an overwhelming success. From there the word has spread, we’ve now done six in total, and it’s really grown into something special. At my most recent reunion in New York, I had the likes of former champions Mark Breland, Iran Barkley, Junior Jones, Angel Manfredy, Al Cole, Nate Miller and Aaron Davis in attendance.
The purpose of these events is to give all of us the opportunity to renew past friendships and to hopefully see former opponents from years gone by again. In New York I had two guys there – Luis Ortiz and 1996 U.S. Olympian Lawrence Clay Bey – who fought each other back in 1997 and had only seen each other one time in all the years since. At one of my reunions in Las Vegas, I ran into a guy by the name of James Saulnier whom I had never spoken to before and had not seen since the night we boxed each other at the 1988
BARKLEY JUST KEPT REPEATING THE WORD ‘WOW’ AFTER HE HAD HUNG UP THE PHONE
USA nationals in Colorado.
We all see each other, and the memories and feelings come flooding back instantly. It’s like going back in a time machine to the best days of our lives, and sharing them with some of the men who actually made them so.
In New York, a guy from Michigan by the name of Jimmy Guerra got up to give a speech into the microphone and when he started talking about a guy he competed against five times back in the early 1990’s – who was in attendance by the name of Tarick Salmaci – he got so choked up that he could hardly get the words out.
I’ve heard it said that there are few ways to really bond with someone, and really get to know them on a certain level as there is when you physically compete against them, as we do. A bond develops from a fight, and it’s so hard to explain, but when you see that person again you feel it deep inside you. There is a level of respect developed, that you can see and feel, when the two old rivals are in each other’s company. We may have hardly spoke to each other, but it’s as if we’ve been friends since we were kids.
Every once in a while I run across someone who is a bit down on their luck, or maybe isn’t in good shape physically, but it’s almost like a magical transformation happens when they get among their former peers. It’s like for three or four hours they are 22 years old again.
In Las Vegas last November, I arranged for former two-time world champion, and a former opponent of mine, Michael Nunn to call me at a designated time from Federal Prison so that he could have a surprise phone call with former amateur and professional opponents Dennis Milton, Iran Barkley, and Alex Ramos. I have them recorded in videos that are available on my Youtube channel and I still watch them frequently because the excitement and respect in the voices of each guy as they spoke to Michael is joyful.
Probably the most lasting memory from those calls was Iran’s reaction. He hadn’t seen him since the very early 1990s and he just kept repeating the word “Wow” out loud to no one in particular for several moments after he hung up the phone.
For me, it says something very special that a simple phone call from a former boxing opponent could result in such a genuine and joyous reaction from one of the toughest and meanest men ever to put on a pair of boxing gloves.