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John "The Iceman" Scully compiled a 38-11 record as a professional boxer with 21 knockouts to his credit, but it is his contribution to the sport as a trainer that he might be best known for these days.
In addition to his training duties, he also finds time these days to work on his book: The Ice Man Diaries. "I've always, since I was a kid, been a writer. In grade school I wrote two or three book reports a week," he said. I'd talk about people that I knew, and people I met like Muhammad Ali, what it was like to spar with Roy Jones, Jr., and people loved it. They'd eat it up, tell me I oughta' turn it all into a book, because people would pay for these kind of inside stories."
The key for the project is to make his take on the sport raise some eyebrows. "I want it to be interesting," he said. "I want people to read it and say, 'Wow, man, that's crazy!' I want people to read it and get a sense of what it is to be a boxer, to be in a fight. People watch fights, and they second-guess what the guy does in the ring, but people don't realize what it means to be a boxer. That's why I wanna' give my insight into it."
Scully also used to work with another undefeated fighter: Chad Dawson, who is now ready to fight for the WBC title on February 3rd. Dawson will battle Tomasz Adamek (31-0, 21 KO's) in a battle of unbeatens with Adamek's belt at stake. "I got with Chad, and I could see he was naturally gifted and very skilled, but he was lacking some things as a pro. Things he hadn't developed yet," said Scully. "I really worked hard with him, and I feel I was responsible for some of his success, in particular with sharpening his jab, body shots and his overall approach to the professional game. In the fights I was with him, he showed great improvement. I look back on those days, and I feel proud of that."
In his own career, he doesn't consider any particular win of his as amazing as a loss he suffered against Michael Nunn. "Just because of who he was, being a superstar and a great boxer, and for the fact that I fought very well," said Scully. "Most people think that was my best performance as a pro. One thing about Nunn that everybody knows is that he's got great defense, he's always slipping punches. According to Compubox I landed 49 percent of my punches and I don't think anybody's ever landed that much against him."
As far as that one fight that still torments him, he looks back to his battle with Henry Maske when he fought for the IBF Light Heavyweight title in Leipzig, Germany. "It was frustrating more than anything. He was very tall, six foot four. It was hard to believe he only weighed 175," said Scully. "He was big, tall, and muscled. He also had a different style as a southpaw. He was patient, laid back, had a good jab, and just a methodical type of style."
In addition to the technical difficulties he faced with the actual fight itself, he also had to try to choke back personal demons. "When I went in, there were a lot of things going on," he said. "My mother was sick at home with cancer. She had to have both legs amputated, and she died four months after the fight. The entire time training and getting ready for the fight, I was dealing with that more than anything. That, combined with his skill and having the whole crowd (14, 000 in attendance) on his side made it tough. The only ones for me were my two corner men."
He's taken all of his observations and created his own unique quirks that he uses to intensify the whole training process for his fighters. "I've trained with a lot of fighters, and I've been in camps and watched a lot of different people train. Most fighters do the same type of stuff: hit bags, do sit-ups, spar, and run," he said. "Nothing they do is really similar to a fight. Sparring isn't even as hard as a fight. Hitting the bag is not as hard as a fight. I know guys in average shape who can go 12 rounds hard on the bag, but they couldn't go that long in a fight. I try to do the type of training that gets you tired like a fight. When I do mitts, it's not just throwing punches at my hands. I have my guys stop suddenly and do push-ups, I wrestle with 'em, have 'em hit me, and other stuff that makes it feel like a real fight. It feels like a war. I see a guy do six rounds on a heavy bag, and they're not tired. The bell rings, and they're walking around like it's a walk in the park."
His greatest accomplishment in his career is being able to elevate his fighters to championship status. Bringing Jose Rivera to his world championship and Oliver to the point where he was able to pick up the USBA belt have been the great intangible rewards he's always worked hard for. He's also hoping to add to his accomplishments by bringing a fighter to the Olympics.
His stable is pretty full right now, and he isn't planning on making much room for any other fighters at the moment. "I have Jose, Mike-Mike, and Israel "Pito" Cardona who is 2-0 in his comeback. Between those three, and being an assistant trainer for Matt Remillard, I have a full plate," he said. "If I have 20 fighters under me I can't really help all of them."
He really enjoys working with what he has. He is so comfortable in his current position that he said he'd turn down a million-dollar offer to train another big-time fighter somewhere else. "I'd stay here with the guys I have already," he said.
The subject that really got Scully talking was the question of what major problems are plaguing the sport of boxing. "There's quite a few that stand out. One very obvious one is the number of sanctioning bodies," he said.
He explained that there used to be the WBC, WBA, IBF, and WBO as the four main organizations overseeing the sport. From that foundation 16 other ones sprang up. In addition to the new upstarts like the IBO, IBA, and IBC, which he calls "bad enough," he asserts that what's worse is the amount of belts now available to boxers. "Now you have the regular champ, super champ, interim champ. They're making them up at a record pace," he said. "Just this morning, I saw to guys signed up to fight, and neither one of 'em's Spanish, and they're fighting for the WBC Latino title. I don't know how that works. You even have African champions now, and that doesn't mean it's from Africa, if you're African American, you could fight for the WBC African title."
He actually took the time to add up the total number of sanctioning bodies, their respective major championships, and all the offspring championships including the territorial ones like North American, International, and Intercontinental, etc., and he multiplied that final figure by the 17 or so weight classes. "With about 20 or so sanctioning bodies, there's literally thousands of belts," he said. "Everybody's got a belt. You look at the top 10 guys in every weight class, and every single one is a champion of something or other. International, Intercontinental, WBO, IBA, United States, North America, etc. It's insane."
The over-abundant supply of gaudy gold and silver straps out there for modern day boxers can be dangerous, Scully argues. The whole concept makes the splintered professional ranks easier to poke fun at, but what really gets Scully's goat is the ill-fitting pride the fighters who hold their belts take in the honor of winning them. "You got a guy like the North American champion according to some sanction body that just came out six months ago, and he's carrying his belt around like he's pound for pound or something," said Scully. "One judge actually told me he thinks it's a good thing. He tells me, 'You ever seen the look on a fighter's face when he wins a belt? Imagine the pride he feels when he holds that belt.'
I tell him "Come on, man. We're not in it to make fighters feel good, we're in it to prove who's the best."
Scully sees the trend hurting the sport and twisting the way it was designed. He sees the purpose of boxing as "not to make people feel good, but to find out who the elite is." He also points out that the world championship just doesn't mean anything anymore. "Ali, when he beat Foreman, he said, 'I shook up the world.' He was right. It was on the front page of Time, Sports Illustrated, the front page of the New York Times, the LA times, and the Chicago Tribune," he said. "It was a huge fight. Now, a guy could go and knock out Klitschko, and he wouldn't shake up Chicago let alone the world. Nobody would care. Nothing in boxing now will ever shake up the world, because too many people are a champion."
To put the whole spectacle in perspective he suggested imagining six Superbowl champions or four Major League Baseball champions. "Imagine a guy who's a billionaire and he says, 'I don't like the Olympics, so I'm gonna' just start my own.' He has his own every four years. But, they still have the other Olympics. So some guy can walk around with his own gold medal now and technically say, 'I'm the Olympic champion.' and people will think to themselves "I thought Carl Lewis won the 100 yard dash. Who is this guy??"
Then you'd have to go through the whole process of explaining how he is the champion of the "other Olympics."
Boxing's the only game in the world, where you can start your own group," said Scully. "You can't start your own Major League Baseball or NBA. But, in boxing you can make your own championship and your own top 10. I could start my own organization and put you in as the number one cruiserweight. All I have to say is 'Hey, that's my opinion, and it's my ratings committee, so you have to accept that, because it's my group, and that was our opinion.' That's what it comes down to."
In addition to his training duties, he also finds time these days to work on his book: The Ice Man Diaries. "I've always, since I was a kid, been a writer. In grade school I wrote two or three book reports a week," he said. I'd talk about people that I knew, and people I met like Muhammad Ali, what it was like to spar with Roy Jones, Jr., and people loved it. They'd eat it up, tell me I oughta' turn it all into a book, because people would pay for these kind of inside stories."
The key for the project is to make his take on the sport raise some eyebrows. "I want it to be interesting," he said. "I want people to read it and say, 'Wow, man, that's crazy!' I want people to read it and get a sense of what it is to be a boxer, to be in a fight. People watch fights, and they second-guess what the guy does in the ring, but people don't realize what it means to be a boxer. That's why I wanna' give my insight into it."
Scully also used to work with another undefeated fighter: Chad Dawson, who is now ready to fight for the WBC title on February 3rd. Dawson will battle Tomasz Adamek (31-0, 21 KO's) in a battle of unbeatens with Adamek's belt at stake. "I got with Chad, and I could see he was naturally gifted and very skilled, but he was lacking some things as a pro. Things he hadn't developed yet," said Scully. "I really worked hard with him, and I feel I was responsible for some of his success, in particular with sharpening his jab, body shots and his overall approach to the professional game. In the fights I was with him, he showed great improvement. I look back on those days, and I feel proud of that."
In his own career, he doesn't consider any particular win of his as amazing as a loss he suffered against Michael Nunn. "Just because of who he was, being a superstar and a great boxer, and for the fact that I fought very well," said Scully. "Most people think that was my best performance as a pro. One thing about Nunn that everybody knows is that he's got great defense, he's always slipping punches. According to Compubox I landed 49 percent of my punches and I don't think anybody's ever landed that much against him."
As far as that one fight that still torments him, he looks back to his battle with Henry Maske when he fought for the IBF Light Heavyweight title in Leipzig, Germany. "It was frustrating more than anything. He was very tall, six foot four. It was hard to believe he only weighed 175," said Scully. "He was big, tall, and muscled. He also had a different style as a southpaw. He was patient, laid back, had a good jab, and just a methodical type of style."
In addition to the technical difficulties he faced with the actual fight itself, he also had to try to choke back personal demons. "When I went in, there were a lot of things going on," he said. "My mother was sick at home with cancer. She had to have both legs amputated, and she died four months after the fight. The entire time training and getting ready for the fight, I was dealing with that more than anything. That, combined with his skill and having the whole crowd (14, 000 in attendance) on his side made it tough. The only ones for me were my two corner men."
He's taken all of his observations and created his own unique quirks that he uses to intensify the whole training process for his fighters. "I've trained with a lot of fighters, and I've been in camps and watched a lot of different people train. Most fighters do the same type of stuff: hit bags, do sit-ups, spar, and run," he said. "Nothing they do is really similar to a fight. Sparring isn't even as hard as a fight. Hitting the bag is not as hard as a fight. I know guys in average shape who can go 12 rounds hard on the bag, but they couldn't go that long in a fight. I try to do the type of training that gets you tired like a fight. When I do mitts, it's not just throwing punches at my hands. I have my guys stop suddenly and do push-ups, I wrestle with 'em, have 'em hit me, and other stuff that makes it feel like a real fight. It feels like a war. I see a guy do six rounds on a heavy bag, and they're not tired. The bell rings, and they're walking around like it's a walk in the park."
His greatest accomplishment in his career is being able to elevate his fighters to championship status. Bringing Jose Rivera to his world championship and Oliver to the point where he was able to pick up the USBA belt have been the great intangible rewards he's always worked hard for. He's also hoping to add to his accomplishments by bringing a fighter to the Olympics.
His stable is pretty full right now, and he isn't planning on making much room for any other fighters at the moment. "I have Jose, Mike-Mike, and Israel "Pito" Cardona who is 2-0 in his comeback. Between those three, and being an assistant trainer for Matt Remillard, I have a full plate," he said. "If I have 20 fighters under me I can't really help all of them."
He really enjoys working with what he has. He is so comfortable in his current position that he said he'd turn down a million-dollar offer to train another big-time fighter somewhere else. "I'd stay here with the guys I have already," he said.
The subject that really got Scully talking was the question of what major problems are plaguing the sport of boxing. "There's quite a few that stand out. One very obvious one is the number of sanctioning bodies," he said.
He explained that there used to be the WBC, WBA, IBF, and WBO as the four main organizations overseeing the sport. From that foundation 16 other ones sprang up. In addition to the new upstarts like the IBO, IBA, and IBC, which he calls "bad enough," he asserts that what's worse is the amount of belts now available to boxers. "Now you have the regular champ, super champ, interim champ. They're making them up at a record pace," he said. "Just this morning, I saw to guys signed up to fight, and neither one of 'em's Spanish, and they're fighting for the WBC Latino title. I don't know how that works. You even have African champions now, and that doesn't mean it's from Africa, if you're African American, you could fight for the WBC African title."
He actually took the time to add up the total number of sanctioning bodies, their respective major championships, and all the offspring championships including the territorial ones like North American, International, and Intercontinental, etc., and he multiplied that final figure by the 17 or so weight classes. "With about 20 or so sanctioning bodies, there's literally thousands of belts," he said. "Everybody's got a belt. You look at the top 10 guys in every weight class, and every single one is a champion of something or other. International, Intercontinental, WBO, IBA, United States, North America, etc. It's insane."
The over-abundant supply of gaudy gold and silver straps out there for modern day boxers can be dangerous, Scully argues. The whole concept makes the splintered professional ranks easier to poke fun at, but what really gets Scully's goat is the ill-fitting pride the fighters who hold their belts take in the honor of winning them. "You got a guy like the North American champion according to some sanction body that just came out six months ago, and he's carrying his belt around like he's pound for pound or something," said Scully. "One judge actually told me he thinks it's a good thing. He tells me, 'You ever seen the look on a fighter's face when he wins a belt? Imagine the pride he feels when he holds that belt.'
I tell him "Come on, man. We're not in it to make fighters feel good, we're in it to prove who's the best."
Scully sees the trend hurting the sport and twisting the way it was designed. He sees the purpose of boxing as "not to make people feel good, but to find out who the elite is." He also points out that the world championship just doesn't mean anything anymore. "Ali, when he beat Foreman, he said, 'I shook up the world.' He was right. It was on the front page of Time, Sports Illustrated, the front page of the New York Times, the LA times, and the Chicago Tribune," he said. "It was a huge fight. Now, a guy could go and knock out Klitschko, and he wouldn't shake up Chicago let alone the world. Nobody would care. Nothing in boxing now will ever shake up the world, because too many people are a champion."
To put the whole spectacle in perspective he suggested imagining six Superbowl champions or four Major League Baseball champions. "Imagine a guy who's a billionaire and he says, 'I don't like the Olympics, so I'm gonna' just start my own.' He has his own every four years. But, they still have the other Olympics. So some guy can walk around with his own gold medal now and technically say, 'I'm the Olympic champion.' and people will think to themselves "I thought Carl Lewis won the 100 yard dash. Who is this guy??"
Then you'd have to go through the whole process of explaining how he is the champion of the "other Olympics."
Boxing's the only game in the world, where you can start your own group," said Scully. "You can't start your own Major League Baseball or NBA. But, in boxing you can make your own championship and your own top 10. I could start my own organization and put you in as the number one cruiserweight. All I have to say is 'Hey, that's my opinion, and it's my ratings committee, so you have to accept that, because it's my group, and that was our opinion.' That's what it comes down to."
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