Big portrait of big boxing gym in Italian lifestyle mag
Once again, Gleason’s Gym is in the news.
The November 2006 issue of Verve, an Italian lifestyle magazine, dedicates eight pages to the Brooklyn outfit calling it the best and most famous boxing gym in the world. The editor-in-chief of Verve, Massimo Pacifico, sent famed photographer Maria Cristina Vimercati to New York where she spent two days at Gleason’s last August to capture the fabled institution.
Bruce Silverglade cooperated with the same degree of professionalism that has made the gym’s reputation grow over the years. The Sweet Science’s Luca De Franco wrote the story, spotlighting the champions who trained at Gleason’s since 1937 and focusing on Oleg Maskaev’s rise to glory after being written off by almost everyone.
Maskaev was working out alone at Gleason’s when he was noticed by trainer Victor Valle Jr., who found him a manager, a promoter and eventually got him a shot at the WBC heavyweight title. Maskaev KO’d champion Hasim Rahman and wrote another chapter of boxing history. This could have happened only at Gleason’s Gym.