Aricles/Press

Boxing Mentor Remembers
by George Hassett
(Featured in the Somerville News June 2, 2004)

The mentor and paternal spirit of the SomelVille Boxing Club, Skeets Scioli, 91, stil/ remem- bers working with a young Joe Louis and the script he memo- rizedasa 16-year-oldtourguide at Bunker Hill. News Photo by Neil W. McCabe

When the Somerville Boxing Club was evicted from the Highland Avenue Masonic Temple May 22 a piece of boxing history was broken down and carried out of Somerville. Volunteers from the club dismantled a 74-year-old boxing ring that had seen the likes of Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson and MuhamrnaAli ply their trade inside its four red ropes.

Skeets Scioli, 91, a 70-year veteran of the fight game, has seen many of the memorable pugilistic moments that have occurred atop the ring's blue canvas. He has seen decades of boxing oddities take place, from a Providence featherweight who didn't have to throw a punch to win a round, to a Brockton middleweight with a secret for success perched on top of his bald head.

"I saw Willie Pep fight for the New England Featherweight championship of the world in that ring. He was such a master of defense that he won a round without ever throwing one single punch," said Scioli.

"Marvelous Marvin Hagler fought 14 bouts inside those ropes. Once, in an amateur bout at the Brockton Armory, I saw him cut a guy's face up just by rubbing his bald head against the guy. See, Marvin used to shave his head but for a few days before a fight he'd let some stubble grow in, and once he was in the ring and tangled up with his opponent, he would rub that stubble on the guy's face. A fighter who already had some cuts may start bleeding just by that. He was a very wily fighter, that Marvin, one of the all-time greats, to say the least," he said.

Although it is now disassembled and being stored in a garage outside the city, the ring's best days are yet to come, Scioli said.

"We'll have it back up and ready for the fighters again. There will be new guys to go alongside the Sugar Ray Robinsons, Muhammad Alis and Marvin Haglers. There always is."