Our History 

The Mack Lewis gym was founded in 1951, Mr. Mack purchased his first gym for $1000.00. The original gym was located at the corner of Broadway and Eager Street. He felt his duty was to the poor and fatherless youth in the neighborhood, to help make them better people. He taught discipline, values, and the importance of hard work and value of a good education. Mr. Mack would urge his fighters to be faithful to their wives and girlfriends, he would even check autographs given by his fighters to make sure they were not giving or getting phone numbers whenever they were on the road. He was always addressed as Mr. Mack or sir. During the 60’s and 70’s he had three fighters ranked among the top 10 in the world they were, Vernon Mason (welterweight),Alvin Anderson (junior middleweight) and Larry Middleton (heavy weight). In the old gym fighters such as Hassam Rahman, Vincent Pettway and even the greatest himself, Muhammad Ali trained there briefly.

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