With Gleason's Closed Due To COVID-19, LesPierre Trained Outside For Pedraza

Mikkel LesPierre’s preparation for his televised fight Thursday night was quite unusual.

Unable to train at Gleason’s Gym, LesPierre primarily prepared outdoors for his 10-round main event versus two-division champion Jose Pedraza. Gleason’s, the famous gym in Brooklyn where LesPierre typically trains, has been closed since the COVID-19 pandemic began three months ago because it was classified as a fitness facility.

That left LesPierre and other professional boxers without a gym in which to train for upcoming matches.

“I actually did all of my training outside,” LesPierre told BoxingScene.com. “It just so happened that the weather worked in my favor every day that I needed to train. I’d go to a track and field in the Bronx that I was able to work at, do some boxing. And then there was another park in the Bronx, where I was able to get a good section to kind of make into a gym, per se, to get the work in that needed to be done to get ready. It definitely was not normal, but you’ve gotta make the best of what’s available to you. You can’t really make excuses.”

ESPN will televise the 10-round junior welterweight bout that’ll pit Puerto Rico’s Pedraza (26-3, 13 KOs) against LesPierre (22-1-1, 10 KOs) as the headliner of a six-bout card from MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas.

The 35-year-old LesPierre, a southpaw from Brooklyn, needed to train in New York for this bout because he also works a full-time job at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. Luckily, LesPierre was able to get in approximately 40 rounds of sparring over the past five weeks against unbeaten prospects at private gyms in the Bronx.

Otherwise, though, LesPierre was relegated to preparing outdoors with trainer Joan Guzman, a former three-division champion.

“The gym should’ve been available to the fighters in the area to train for their respective events,” LesPierre said. “But I think the reason they didn’t make it a necessity is because of the amount of fighters in the area that’s getting prepared for a fight. That’s not to say there aren’t fighters getting ready for later dates, but I’m assuming that’s why they didn’t do it and made it harder for us. But I do think it’s not fair. We are professional athletes as well, and we should be treated fairly and the same.”

Bruce Silverglade, the longtime president of Gleason’s Gym, can’t understand why New York governor Andrew Cuomo didn’t include Gleason’s and other New York boxing gyms where professional fighters train when he announced May 24 that professional sports teams based in New York could return to their training facilities. Silverglade isn’t pushing to open Gleason’s to all of its roughly 1,200 members just yet, only to the approximate 50 pro boxers who train there regularly.

“They used this real broad brush when they came up with these guidelines,” Silverglade told BoxingScene.com. “They lumped us in with yoga classes and things like that. This wasn’t a problem until pro sports teams were allowed back at their facilities. The Nets practice a mile away from Gleason’s. Basketball players are allowed to train. Why not boxers? I’m not looking to open my gym for everybody at this point. It’s not for every man, woman and child who wants to come to the gym to work out. This is strictly for my professional fighters. For Mikkel to be training in a park for this type of fight, I don’t think that’s fair.

“It’s very easy to police who is in the gym. They’re all licensed by the state of New York and they all have a federal ID. If someone wants to come check on them, if a fighter doesn’t have a federal ID they can be removed from the gym. My point is, professional fighters shouldn’t be discriminated against. I can’t get anyone to answer any of my questions about this. I just get form letters through email. I’m not saying, across the board, anyone should be able to train in my gym. I’m just saying pro boxers should be allowed to train to make a living, just like basketball players.” 

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.