Former IBF Light heavyweight world title challenger John
"Iceman" Scully is busy planning a twelve bout amateur boxing show for
Friday, December 5, 2008 at the brand new Lion's Den Gym in Middletown,
Connecticut. The card will raise funds to purchase a Memorial Plaque for
longtime Hartford trainer, and National Golden Gloves Hall of Fame
member, Johnny Duke who passed at age 83 away in 2006. The plaque will
be permanently placed on a brick wall the currently borders the site of
Duke's former gym at the Bellevue Square Housing Project in Hartford's
north end.
Scully often trained at Duke's Bellevue Square Boys Club in the
80's and 90's and also had Duke in his corner for many of his amateur
and professional fights. After Duke's passing in 2006 Scully set off on
an eighteen month long quest that ended with the Hartford Housing
Authority granting him permission to raise funds for the plaque honoring
Duke and a more than forty year old gym that produced the likes of 1958
and 1959 AAU National Champion Jimmy Blythe, 1970's era New England
Lightweight Champion Donny Nelson, 1996 U.S. Olympian Lawrence Clay-Bey,
IBO 122 pound champion Mike "Machine Gun" Oliver and two-time
welterweight champion Marlon Starling.
Scully is now the head boxing trainer at the Lion's Den in
Middletown and will use the facility to run a series of amateur boxing
shows on what he hopes to be a monthly basis. The first show on December
5th will feature the likes of Scully-trained five-time Western New
England Golden Gloves lightweight champion Joey Perez and two-time
Golden Gloves champion Christian Lau of Meriden's Silver City Gym.
Boxers from several area gyms, including those coached by former
Johnny Duke boxer Hector Rosario of Hartford, will be featured on the
card. Rosario won several championship titles as an amateur boxer under
Duke in the 1980's including the New England Golden Gloves Bantamweight
title back in 1987 that he captured in Lowell, Massachusetts by scoring
a final round decision over future world title challenger "Sucra" Ray
Olivera.