John Conlon to be honoured Friday

When John Conlon’s son, Shawn, was about 12, he decided he didn’t want to play hockey any more.

Shawn had also dabbled in soccer and baseball but his father was looking to introduce him to something new.

“I was playing baseball with a guy named Ricky Fortuna and I told him I was looking to get Shawn into something and he told me to bring him down to the boxing club,” said John, who be inducted this Friday into the Niagara Boxing Legends during a fight card at the Merritton Community Centre.

At the time, the Niagara Falls Boxing Club was being run by John DeGazio Sr. and Ray McGibbon.

“I always had an interest in it but I never did any competition,” John said.

The 70-year-old Niagara Falls native quickly became immersed in the sport.

“One of the things they were having a problem with was funding the club,” he said. “They got so much money from the City of Niagara Falls to pay their rent but all their other costs had to come from garage sales.

“I told John there was money out there but you had to know how to lobby people to get money. He told me he didn’t know anything about that so I told him I could help him with it.”

The retired Ontario Hydro worker was able to get the Niagara Falls Boxing Club and the Shamrock Boxing Club $2,000 apiece. DeGazio appreciated the effort and asked Conlon if he would come help coach at the club.

“I got to spend a lot of time with John and Ray learning how to coach and I did it for about eight years,” Conlon said. “My last three years were with Ron Gallen and I was very fortunate to work with those three guys.”

He ended up helping coach his son Shawn, a fellow 2022 Niagara Boxing Legend inductee, Michael Strange, Johnny Mitchell, Isaac Mitchell, Eddy Dawson, Donny Gignac and a number of other talented fighters.

“In my time, I probably coached about 25-30 boxers but only about 10 were involved in competition.”

He took great delight in helping coach his son to four provincial titles and three bronze medals at the national championships.

“Over the course of six years, he had a great boxing career.”

His favourite moment was when Shawn was named top boxer at the provincial intermediate championships.

Conlon stepped away from coaching about three years after his son left the sport.

“A lot of things were happening in my life and I just kind of got out of it.”

He thoroughly enjoyed his time in the sport.

“It was the competition and watching kids come in and get serious about it. You get them into sparring and once they start that they are hungry to get into some competition,” he said. “At the club, we always had really good sparring sessions. Some of them were probably as good as actual fights.”

The Niagara Falls Boxing Club coaches were aided by other boxers.

“The Fortuna brothers (Rob and Rick) were a great help to the younger kids because they were older,” Conlon said. “When kids like Shawn and Mike Strange came along they had someone to look up to.”

He is thrilled to be named a Niagara Boxing Legend.

“It is a big honour for me but it is bigger to see Shawn get the recognition. He had a really good career.”