![]() ![]() Steward also worked Klitschko, the current heavyweight champion, as recently as July when the boxer led 22,000 fans in singing “Happy Birthday,” to the beloved trainer. I’ll miss his smile, his frank no-holds-barred truthfulness and our discussions on boxing and life.” “I’m proud to have had him in my corner for so many years. “Manny was giving, selfless, compassionate and stern,” Lewis said. “Manny always told me I was the best, but the truth is, he was the best and I’m grateful, privileged and honored to be counted among his many historic successes. “This has been a very tragic year for the boxing world, but today we’ve truly lost one of its crown jewels,” Lewis wrote on his official website. Lewis, a former heavyweight champion, was trained by Steward from 1994 to 2004, a period which included victories over Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson. He was an important part of our boxing community.” We were also friends and I know I am going to miss him as so many others will, too. “I learned a lot from him during our professional relationship and I will be forever grateful for his help during that time. “It brings me great grief and sadness to hear of the passing of one of the best and most respected trainers of this era,” De La Hoya said. Steward was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1996. In recent years, his melting pot of boxers included a Ukrainian heavyweight, an Irish middleweight and scores of young men from Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. In the early years at Kronk, most of his fighters were black. “We are grateful for Emanuel Steward’s many contributions to our city and his impact on generations of young people.” “Emanuel Steward embodied our city’s toughness, our competitive spirit, and our determination to always answer the bell. “With the loss of Emanuel Steward, we have lost a true Detroit icon,” Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said. It was allowed to remain open, but it put Steward in a difficult financial situation and he later rented space at a gym in Dearborn so his young fighters could train. The city closed the original Kronk Recreation Center - a hot, sweaty basement gym - after vandals stole its copper piping in 2006. He loved boxing - and boxers - but like the Motor City, the gym he adored fell on hard times. “A lot of these kids would be in the streets,” Steward once said. The gym for years was seen as a way to keep kids out of trouble in southwestern Detroit. “He saw the respect when they saw the colors.” “Lennox used to say when fighting as an amateur that everyone was afraid of the Kronk guys,” Steward once said. Steward trained, helped train or managed some of the greatest fighters - and some kids who just needed to get off the streets - of the past 40 years out of Kronk and in other facilities across the globe, putting fighters from many countries in red and gold trunks. “He brought the very, very best out of me,” Hearns once said of Steward. ![]() Hearns was knocked out in the 14th round by Sugar Ray Leonard in 1981 - Steward said that was the most painful experience of his life - and Hearns was on the short end of a three-round fight with Marvin Hagler in 1985 that is considered one of the best bouts in boxing history. The boxer known as Hitman was the first man to win titles in four divisions - he won five overall - and topped his 155-8 amateur record by going 61-5-1 with 48 knockouts as a pro.Įven though Steward had a lot of success with Hearns, some of his setbacks from his corner were among the most memorable in the sport. The Kronk’s first professional champion was Hilmer Kenty, a lightweight from Columbus, Ohio, who started training there in 1978 and won the WBA title two years later.īut It was Hearns who really put Kronk - and the trainer known as Manny - on the map. ![]() and in 1971 accepted a part-time position as head coach - for $35 per week - of the boxing program at the Kronk Recreation Center. Instead of trying to make it as a professional boxer, he went to work for the Detroit Edison Co. Steward, at the age of 18, won the national Golden Gloves tournament as a bantamweight. He moved to the Motor City just before becoming a teenager and trained as an amateur boxer at Brewster Recreation Center, which once was the home gym of Joe Louis. He got boxing gloves as a Christmas present at the age of 8, the start of what would become a long career in the sweet science. Steward, whose father was a coal miner and mother was a seamstress, was born in West Virginia. ![]()
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