Tales from the 5th Street Gym: Ali, the Dundees, and Miami's Golden Age of Boxing Review

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Tales from the 5th Street Gym: Ali, the Dundees, and Miami's Golden Age of Boxing ReviewThe Miami Herald May 23, 2010
[...]
BY JOHN HOOD
Special to The Miami Herald
In the long and colorful history of boxing, there was no place as singularly important to the game as the 5th Street Gym. Located on South Beach between the area's heydays, the gym was a sort of ground zero for a good two decades of the mid 20th century, where hard-nosed Cuban fighters such as Luis Manuel Rodriquez and Florentino Fernandez ended up after fleeing Castro, where everyone from Kid Gavilan to Joe Louis would come to train for their championship bouts.
Mostly, though, the 5th Street Gym was known as the home of Muhammad Ali, who continues to be considered the greatest of them all. Chris Dundee ran the place like a minor fiefdom; handling all the action in the manner of a potentate. And in Ali's corner was Chris' brother Angelo, Cuban ex-pat Luis Sarria and Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, all of them on hand for -- and instrumental to -- Ali's rise to the top.
Pacheco, who appears Tuesday at Books & Books in Coral Gables, has just released an oral history, Tales from the 5th Street Gym (Florida, $27.50), that has enough first-hand accounts and on-scene photos to bring back all the glory. Pacheco, most famously known as ``The Fight Doctor,'' was in the champ's corner for ``The Thrilla in Manila'' and ``The Rumble in the Jungle,'' and he recounts those episodes with great charm.
The book tells the story of a place graced with unparalleled character. An integrated place, the first of its kind in Florida, where fighters learned to fight, trainers perfected their game, and celebrities hobnobbed with old-timers like Evil Eye Finkle, Sam the Mumbler, Raincoat Rabinowitz and Tip Toe Tannenbaum.
We visited Pacheco in his Bay Point home and asked him about the book, the gym and about his place alongside ``The Greatest.''
Q: You say in your intro that this book is primarily to ensure the legacy of Chris Dundee, without whom there wouldn't even be a gym. What did he bring to the fight game?
A: He brought a consummate professionalism that we didn't have here before. Plus he brought substantial underworld connections, which you had to have if you were gonna have boxing. He had Frankie Carbone in his pocket -- or Frankie Carbone had him in his pocket. So when you've got the mob, and you've got the location, and you've got the fighters, you needed someone to coordinate all that, to make sure it worked.
Q: Would it be fair to say that there might not even be an Ali -- or at least an Ali as we know him -- were it not for the efforts of Chris Dundee?
A: No, I don't think that's right. Ali was gonna be Ali no matter what. Whoever's there was going along for the ride, just holding on for dear God. Whoever it was. It doesn't make any difference. There were a lot of boxing guys who would have been thrilled to get a hold of Ali. You didn't have to do anything. Somebody handed you Ali, and you just sat down and counted the money.
Q: There are scores of stories about Ali's trainer Angelo Dundee, but corner man Luis Sarria seems to be a bit forgotten.
A: He was hugely overlooked because he didn't speak English. He was like a serf in a medieval castle. He was the guy that they called in the middle of the night to massage the king.
Q: But was he instrumental to Ali's career?
A: Oh yeah, because Ali listened to him. He wouldn't listen to anyone else, but he'd listen to Sarria. Sarria got him in shape, and Sarria was a very, very smart boxing guy. And he'd say what Angelo said, Angelo would say what I said, or vice versa. We had a unified corner.
Q: What are some of your fondest memories working with Ali?
A: Fondest memories are beating Liston here, for the first time. Beating Frazier in the Philippines was the best fight of my life. I've never seen anything that big. And beating Foreman in the jungle at four in the morning. Those were the three big, big occasions. I mean, you couldn't get any bigger than that. You cannot express the absolute thrill of being right next to the guy in those days.
Q: Why did you stop working with him?
A: I thought he was being mismanaged into oblivion. He was already a basket case, and they kept putting him in against better fighters. Finally they put him in against Holmes, who was then the champion, and that was a disgrace. That was murder. So I walked away. [His Parkinson's:] would not be as bad had he quit when I told him, after the Frazier fight in Manila. He would not be good, but he wouldn't be as bad.
Q: Who are some of the other top-notch fighters who came out of the 5th Street Gym?
A: The main one, the best one, was Luis Manuel Rodriquez. He was the welterweight champion. He taught Ali how to fight. Florentino Fernandez too; he was just a devastating fighter.
Q: For many years you ran a clinic in Overtown. Can you please tell us a bit about that?
A: For 20 years I ran a clinic on [NW:] Second Avenue and 10th Street, and I never took a dime. The neighborhood was like Porgy and Bess then. It was all black, but there were no race riots or anything like that. It was terrific. I used to go to the Sir John's Club, and The Harlem Square Club was right across the street from my place. I caught everyone. I'm a jazz fan. You walk across the street, and there's Lester Young blowing; Billie Holiday; the whole Ellington Band. At 12 a.m. they threw them all off the Beach, so they'd come right over, and they'd jam till 5 in the morning. Boy, those were the days.
John Hood is a Miami-based columnist and correspondent.
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