By Ryan Burton

 

BoxingScene.com spoke to Tom Tsatas about the reopening of The 5th Street Boxing Gym in Miami, Florida.  The 5th street Gym was a place where Muhammed Ali, Sonny Liston, and other greats once trained.  Tsatas has been around the sport of boxing for a long time in different capacities including being the manager of heavyweight Fres Oquendo.

 

"We have pushed the grand opening date back to September for The 5th Street Gym," Tsatas told BoxingScene.  "Angelo (Dundee) is going to be there as is Ferdie Pacheco.  We want to make sure all of the people that we have invited will be able to attend the opening so we felt it was best to wait till September to open up.  Once a firm date is set I will let you know."

 

Our conversation shifted from the 5th Street Boxing Gym to more of a general boxing conversation.  When ESPN Friday Night Fight's was brought up Tsatas wanted to voice his concern.  "I am close to the (Donovan) George family.  His brother works for me.  I have had him under my wing for a while.  Pete George his father had trained him for his first 21 fights and had him undefeated. He wasn't able to train him for this fight.  He has caught a lot of flack because people thought the fight should have been stopped maybe a couple rounds earlier."

 

George took a a lot of punishment in the fight and there have been stories criticizing George's corner for not stopping the fight a lot earlier.  Tsatas went on to say, "His dad is a good trainer and a great father.  I want to set the record straight from my end at least.  His dad wasn't the chief second.  Sam Colonna wasn't the chief second either so I don't see why they are getting so much flack."

 

Tsatas has been around Donovan George and wants to make it clear that he isn't his manager or anything like that.  He just wants people to know that he is a good fighter and he wanted to set the record straight on his father and Sam Cologne's role in the fight.  "Obviously it wasn't a good performance by Donovan but he is a good super middleweight.  People need to lay off his father and Sam Cologne.  Aside from being in his corner physically they were not the people running his corner.  I have read a lot of comments about the fight and these aren't the type of guys to go out there and make excuses.  I feel the necessity to set the record straight.  It isn't fair to them.  Pete George had his kid undefeated up to that point and he couldn't be there for the training camp.  His father has a job and couldn't make it out there for four or five weeks."

 

The 5th Street Boxing Gym will be reopening up next month.  Once an official date has been set an announcement will follow.

 

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