The Next Round

The sounds of boxing haven’t changed much over the years. There’s still the rhythmic flutter of jump ropes tapping the floor, the rattle of speed bags and steady thud of padded fists pounding the guts of a heavy leather bag. The boxing gym remains a place of bruises and dreams, spit and blood.

There is tradition--not all of it good--and there is reverence for a sport that some say doesn’t deserve it. The names of great ones, with thunder in their fists and lightning intheir feet, are mentioned often here. And with each new face that enters the ring, there’s the one-in-a-million possibility of seeing the young, raw talent of the next Great One.

Jackie Kallen, wearing a black coat dress, patterned hose and gleaming stiletto heels, arrives at the L.A. Boxing Club in downtown Los Angeles from a news conference at the Forum. Ten years ago, gym denizens would have raised their brows, feeling an intrusion of their sacred, sweat-soaked space. What was a broad like that doing in a place like this?

But now they know.

Kallen, the most successful woman manager in men’s boxing, has come to see about a kid from Georgia. Just about the time she tells herself she is getting out of this business, the telephone rings. And it’s another kid with big dreams.

This one’s name is Milton Wynn.

Kallen, twice nominated by sportswriters for manager of the year, is best known for her work with three-time champ James “Lights Out” Toney. They took each other to the top, but their relationship crumbled in 1994 after Toney lost his International Boxing Federation super middleweight crown to Roy Jones Jr.

A couple days after the fight, Kallen received a telephone call from Toney’s mother, who said the fallen champ was on his way to Kallen’s house, and he had a gun. Toney was blaming her for the loss, claiming Kallen, out of greed, kept him in the lower weight divisions, where he often had to work off more than 40 pounds for each bout.

Police stood guard at her house outside Detroit, but Toney never showed. The unlikely pair--a suburban homemaker, mother, former gossip columnist, and he, a brash, street-tough former drug dealer who fought his way to the top--went through the motions of finishing out their contract, then parted ways. Since the break-up, Toney, who was undefeated prior to his loss to Jones, has lost three more bouts as he moved up to the heavyweight division.

Kallen, too, has gone through hard times. In 1996, her mother, Marjorie Mahoney--a folk singer, actress and writer--died of cancer as Kallen lay next to her in bed. Later that year, Kallen’s father suffered a stroke, and she placed him in a nursing home.

In January, her husband of 30 years left, and they were soon divorced. With her mother gone, her father debilitated, her marriage ended, two sons grown up with lives of their own and Toney partnered with another manager, it seemed there was nothing left to lose.

Then she discovered the lump in her breast--the first of two precancerous masses removed this year.

Boxing and life are a lot alike, Kallen says. Both can pummel you to the ground. And both can lift you back up. There are times in and out of the ring when you must throw in the towel, or find the strength and balance to climb back to your feet. And there are times when you must simply stand and fight. The key, she says, is to never give up.

“I don’t feel there are failures in life,” she says. “You always have that puncher’s chance to stay in the fight. There’s always that chance to come back.”

And that’s what she is doing now.

In February, she left her 3,000-square-foot home in West Bloomfield Hills, sold the Ferraris, gave away half her wardrobe and about 100 pairs of shoes, which she had stored on electronic racks in a closet the size of a bedroom. Each outfit was indexed, so she knew when she wore it and who saw her wear it.

She found a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, just outside Beverly Hills, to begin her new life.

She has written a book, released last month titled, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” (St. Martin’s Press). It’s a self-help book structured around boxing to help people deal with life’s tough punches.

In April, she became commissioner of the International Female Boxing Assn. (IFBA), which has become her focus and passion. It feels good, she says, to be on the ground level of something she believes in, to build anew.

And building anew is what brings her to the gym, a chance to build another fighter. Milton Wynn played the tuba, trombone, piano and drums in high school but never went out for sports. He taught himself to box by studying instructional videos and hasn’t been in the ring for almost two years because of an injured shoulder.

He is, in all ways, a long shot, but Kallen has a hunch about this small town son of a preacher from Perry, Ga. When it comes to heavyweight fighters, managers and trainers look harder and longer to find a spark. There is something special about heavyweights. A quarter moon or half moon or even a moon just a sliver short of whole can sparkle and be wondrous. But they are never complete, never whole. A heavyweight is a full moon.

Kallen was introduced to boxing 20 years ago, when she did publicity work in her native Detroit for the Kronk gym and an unknown fighter named Tommy Hearns, who would prove to be one of boxing’s best.

She studied the sport from distant corners, a shadowed world filled with cheap suits, liars and lacquered dreams. She absorbed the lessons of Kronk’s Emanuel Steward, one of the most respected trainers in the business, and in 1988, she decided to try managing. Boxers didn’t line up for her attention.

Then along came a banged-up heavyweight named Bobby Hitz. No one was lined up for his attention either. Together, they formed a team, Kallen holding his feet while he did sit-ups, slamming a medicine ball into his stomach. They believed in each other, and sometimes in boxing. That’s a lot, but Hitz’ career was so plagued by injuries that even that wasn’t enough.

Then came another fighter. James Toney had good reason for needing a manager: his last one got shot. Toney was introduced to Kallen in 1989 and two years later was a world champion.

With Kallen, it was family-style boxing, which included pizza at her place, bowling on weekends with her family and the fighters’ families. She took her fighters to the theater to see “Grease,” drove them north to see the leaves change, took them to the zoo. On the road she sometimes ironed their shirts for news conferences. She taught them to fold their napkins in their laps, took them on their first plane trips. Both of her sons stood up for Toney at his wedding.

She opened a gym in the Detroit suburbs where anyone who wanted to learn to box could train for free. On Thanksgiving, she took her crew to a mission in downtown Detroit to help feed the homeless.

Four of her fighters were title holders. She did her best to keep herself and her fighters from getting chewed up by the sport. Sometimes her heart got in the way.

“Sometimes the people who manage them keep throwing them in and throwing them in for the pay days, mismatching them, putting them into fights they don’t have a chance to win. . . . My fighters are my friends, and they’re more important to me than money.”

“She’s always been there for me,” says Hearns, who wrote the forward for her book. “She’s someone I know I can call 24 hours a day, and she’s someone I know I can trust, no matter what. People like that are hard to find.”

Scotty Buchzeiger, a former Kallen fighter who recently retired from the sport, says he doesn’t believe Toney’s accusations about Kallen.

“James [Toney] is a good friend of mine. As a matter of fact, he sort of took me under his wing and introduced me to Jackie,” says Buchzeiger. “I know James blamed her for a lot of things, but I also know Jackie would never do anything to hurt him or any of her fighters.”

(Toney, through his manager, did not return telephone calls.)

Kallen’s career has been marked with the constant struggle for respect in a sport that wasn’t used to having women in its ranks. Following a fight in Atlantic City, while Kenny Gould, one of Kallen’s fighters, was in the ring awaiting a decision, Kallen climbed toward the ropes, but the referee refused to allow her in. She tried to explain that she was the fighter’s manager, but the official refused.

At ringside, a sportswriter told her, “The only women that belong in the ring are the ring card girls.” Kallen fumed.

There were always rumors: She was nothing more than a novelty, fronting for a man behind the scenes who was doing the managing or she was a girlfriend of the fighters.

Sometimes when she appeared with her black fighters, there were racial slurs, and more than once when one of her boxers would win a close decision, someone from the crowd would blurt, “How many of the officials did you have to blow to get that one?” The doors to boxing were difficult to pass through.

“I had to prove that I knew the sport,” she says. “It wasn’t until people talked to me that I could make them understand that I was knowledgeable. . . . It was a matter of very quietly and subtly winning people over and letting them know that I just wanted to be one of them and amongst them.”

For the most part, she has gained respect or, at least, acceptance of those in the business. “I’m not considered an outsider anymore, and that’s the best vindication of all--to start out as an outsider and end up in the circle. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone anymore.”

*

Her emphasis is on her role as commissioner of the IFBA, paving the way for more women to find a place in the sport. She has tried to leave managing behind and has only one fighter, former North American Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Joseph Kiwanuka, on contract. She can’t believe she is here looking at another boxer.

Milton Wynn, in all ways, is a long shot. But there is something about him, Kallen says. Wynn spent the previous day with veteran trainer Don Familton, and if Familton hadn’t seen a spark of something, Wynn would be on a plane bound home for Georgia today.

“The thing that impressed me the most about him was that he has had very little training and coaching and has picked up boxing by himself from watching tapes and has been able to get himself to the point where he looked good enough yesterday to bring him back today,” Familton says.

Picking the right trainer for the right fighter is key in managing. Kallen has chosen Familton for his teaching abilities, and because he is a friend who, like her, is in need of healing.

Since his wife’s death last year, Familton, who also coaches high school football, has not felt the urge to return to the gym. His last fighter was heavyweight Tex Cobb.

“I haven’t been real peppy,” he says. “If it weren’t for Jackie, I wouldn’t be here. She’s been around the best, and she knows the game, but she hasn’t been tainted. She operates ethically, and this game is full of quick-buck artists. I wouldn’t want to work with just anybody. I’m not looking for fighters. I’m not looking to get back, but here I am. Who knows?”

In his 30 years in gyms like this, Familton has built a complex love-hate relationship that is common in the sport.

“I don’t recommend this game to anybody,” he says. “If you’ve got anything else you can do, you shouldn’t be doing this. . . . It sounds like I don’t like boxing, and that’s not true. I think it’s a great sport. It’s helped a lot of people, but you cannot overlook the number of guys who have gotten out of the game broke or injured.”

Wynn has other talents. A CD of contemporary gospel music he wrote and performed is soon to be released. But he is certain he wants to give boxing his best shot before time passes him by. He has been phoning Kallen for more than a year, pleading with her to take a look at his jab, his heart. Finally three weeks ago, while Kallen was at an IFBA fight in Lula, Miss., Wynn, his father and a deacon from their church drove 10 hours to have dinner with Kallen at the Lady Luck Casino in Lula.

She said she would fly him out to L.A. to take a look at him--no promises, no guarantees. She has learned to be tentative.

“If I do manage another fighter,” she says, “it will not be with the belief that it’s going to be a forever relationship. After what happened with James, I have to ask myself, ‘Do I really want to put so much of my time and energy and emotions into something knowing that chances are it’s going to have an unhappy ending?”

*

Wynn is nervous as he climbs into the ring. Kallen has rounded up three fighters to spar with him. The first guy is lighter, with little experience. The second guy is barefoot. The third guy is Lamon Brewster, an undefeated rising star. Familton explains to Brewster that he’s not looking for a fight. He just wants someone to move around the ring with Wynn.

By the time Wynn touches gloves with Brewster, he is fatigued. He’s dropping his left hand, exposing his chin. He is rattled by a sharp blow to the body. His timing is off. His head is down as he climbs out of the ring.

“All right,” Kallen says, “here’s the deal. First of all how do you feel you did?”

“I was disappointed,” Wynn says, not making eye contact.

“That’s good. You probably thought you were going to come in here and run all over everybody right? Now you’ve learned the difference between Perry, Ga. and L.A.”

Kallen and Familton huddle, and they agree, Wynn has potential. His jab is crisp, he learns quickly, he’s willing to work. Kallen says she will bring him back, get him in shape, see how he does in four rounds. They’ll go from there.

For now, they are a team, each member needing boxing for different reasons.

For assistant Les King, who has been around the sport for 10 years, it helped him get out of a street gang.

For Wynn, it’s a shot at a dream.

For Familton, perhaps being back in the gym will help him get back on track after his wife’s death.

And then there’s Kallen, who has learned through boxing how to fight back in life.

“It’s a battle, it’s a fight, survival of the fittest,” she says of the ring. “It’s domination, control, outthinking the opponent. There are so many facets to the sport that I find compelling and interesting. The idea of fighting to get somewhere, whether it’s physical or emotional, I can identify with having to fight.”

In boxing, she sees life. And, in the IFBA she sees a chance to build respect, opportunities for women. And in Milton Wynn, there is a hunch born in a place called the Lady Luck Casino, a one-in-a-million chance and the lure of a full moon.