Sully’s gym is fighting to survive
Eviction and rising rents threaten the future of 76-year-old Toronto boxing landmark
When Tony Morrison strolls into Sully’s Gym to meet his Tuesday afternoon students, he walks past a dozen old punching bags, laid on their sides and stacked like firewood in the main hallway.
Next to those punching bags sit cardboard boxes, taped shut and full of mementos that once adorned the walls of this second-floor space on Dupont St. W. near Dufferin. Much of the other equipment has already been moved downstairs to wait for the historic boxing gym’s moving day.
That’s a problem, because Morrison needs some of them for the crew who has just showed up for a 4 p.m. training session. So he sends 17-yearold Ethan Koszelewski downstairs, and moments later the teenager returns to the gym lugging a pair of 55-pound dumbbells.
“I already brought the 90 up,” says Koszelewski. “Do you need me to bring up the rack too?”
“That’s too heavy,” says Morrison, a retired pro heavyweight who now serves as the head coach at Sully’s. “You need help.”
And so does the gym, which has operated at various locations in the city since 1943, but now faces eviction, a costly relocation and the prospect of starting again amid rising rents. A recent crowdfunding campaign met its $30,000 goal, thanks largely to a $15,000 donation from the sports streaming service DAZN, which has invested heavily in boxing.
The building’s management has also granted an extension on their eviction notice, bumping their move-out date from March to June.
But with few solid leads on a new facility in a central location, a local boxing landmark faces a hazy future.
“We’re not a charity case; we’re a boxing gym,” says Morrison, who was 17-12 as a pro. “It’s an old-school gym and I try to keep it that way … but everywhere you go, the rents have gone up.”
The gym’s management bills it as Canada’s longest continuously operating boxing and wrestling gym, and it dates back to an era when neighbourhood gyms abounded and the local pro boxing scene flourished.
No pro boxing shows took place in Toronto in 1943, the year Earl (Sully) Sullivan first opened his gym, but by 1950 there were 25 pro shows, according to the online boxing database BoxRec. Of those cards, 16 took place at Maple Leaf Gardens. In contrast, the Air Canada Centre hosted only two pro boxing events between 1999 and 2018.
By 1966, the number of pro cards in Toronto had dwindled to 12, but one of them was the history-making showdown between local hero George Chuvalo and polarizing heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali. The champion swept into town and set up a temporary training camp at Sully’s, and sold Torontonians on the idea that he was out of shape and ripe for an upset.
“I’m not saying I’m going to lose for sure, but my chances of winning have never been so bad,” a 24-year-old Ali told the Star before the bout.
Of course, Ali pounded out a 15-round unanimous decision over a determined but outclassed Chuvalo, but he left his imprint on a gym that has also hosted world champs such as Lennox Lewis and national champions including welterweight Clyde Gray. The walls at Sully’s still bear several posters of Ali, including a blown-up photo from his third fight with Joe Frazier.
These days Sully’s doesn’t host many pros. Undefeated super-welterweight Zsolt Daranyi Jr. still trains with Morrison, but most members are a mix of teenage amateurs, adults who box for fitness, and people like Koszelewski, a martial arts aficionado who started boxing training to fill out his skill set.
“I would love to honour this place just by fighting,” Koszelewski says. “Just by having one fight.”
Morrison says the eviction notice came after a promoter rented out the gym for a concert, an apparent violation of the rental agreement. The original eviction date was set for March 15, and set off a scramble to raise money to relocate. Donations trickled in from individuals, and a big sum came from DAZN, which has sponsored two pro boxing cards in Toronto in the last 12 months.
“Sully’s has such a deeprooted history in both the Canadian and North American boxing history that we wanted to help them and preserve that boxing heritage,” said Joseph Markowski, executive VP of DAZN North America, in an email to the Star.
The donation bought Sully’s management time to ponder some difficult options. Morrison says staying central will mean that rent will likely double from the roughly $3,000 Sully’s currently pays each month. But moving somewhere more affordable could make the gym less accessible for members who currently walk or take the bus.
Either way, Morrison says, he doesn’t need a sleek new facility.
He just needs a place to continue the coaching and community he says makes Sully’s unique.
“Sully’s was always rundown and grungy, but it worked,” he says. “Ali trained there. It’s not about the gym, or being fancy. It’s about how you work.”