Tolaymat

Chicago Violence: Boxing Promoter Tolaymat Confronts Gunfire, Misses Molina Party

By Robert Brizel, Head RCM Boxing Correspondent

*Photo Copyright Credit: Robert Brizel

 With ten people wounded in overnight shootings in Chicago’s violent South and West sides, boxing promoter Wasfi Tolaymat of Chicago Fight Promotion confronted gunfire and near death Saturday evening, September 28, 2013. Tolaymat, one of the world’s most renowned salesmen and dealers of used commercial coolers, emerged from a grocery store where he was doing business into five gunshots. The grocery store window got blown away, and a nearby car got shot off. Thankfully nobody including Tolaymat was shot or killed. Tolaymat is in current negotiations to open the Chicago Boxing Hall of Fame and a new boxing gym for neighborhood youth, which would be the second gym.

 

In an international Real Combat Media exclusive, Wasfi Tolaymat described the mad scene which has come to describe the suddenly lawless ruthless streets of Chicago, the active involvement of himself and his wife Cynthia in the soon to be Chicago Boxing Hall of Fame, a new second gym to be opened by his Chicago Fight Clubs Promotion group, and the scene which unfolded at the funeral of Ken Norton.

 

Real Combat Media: “What happened to you yesterday in Chicago?”

 

Wasfi Tolaymat: “Yesterday around 6 P.M. C.S.T. I was standing by a customer in a new grocery store at 557 West Wilson when bullets went flying. A bullet hit the window of the store. The customer told me to hit the ground. Instead I went out of the grocery store and into   the parking lot. People were running right and left. Someone was shooting from a red moving car-I didn’t get a good look at it. I saw the guy they were shooting at. He told me that ‘The red car turned right and started shooting at me’ after I heard the five gunshots. One shot hit the store window. One bullet hit a car side window in the parking lot, and the other three bullets hit the side door of the car in the parking lot.”

 

Real Combat Media: “Why didn’t you stay in the grocery store and stay safe? Why confront death?”

 

Wasfi Tolaymat: “I ran out towards the gunfire. I saw the bullet casings in the street. I put them on my keys and kept them for the police. Yes, I’m always like this. I wanted to catch them (the shooters). I called the police 20 times before somebody came 15 minutes later.”

 

Real Combat Media: “What is causing the outbreak of violence in the Chicago streets?”

 

Wasfi Tolaymat: “These people are hungry. They need to stop selling drugs, stealing and robbing because there are no jobs. The people here eat the police. The police cannot be on every corner. Too many people with no jobs and nothing to eat now. They need to keep the kids off the streets.”

 

Real Combat Media: “What can you at Chicago Fight Club do for Chicago’s youth?”

 

Wasfi Tolaymat: “Chicago Fight Club keeps the kids off the streets at our gym, and we do not charge for admission. Right now we are trying to open the Chicago Boxing Hall of Fame Museum, and another Chicago Fight Promotion gym in Chicago. We hope the gym and them museum will be located inside the Jesse White Tumblers Gymnastics Training Center Facility building at 410 West Chicago. We are working with Jesse White, the longtime Secretary of State of Illinois, whose Jesse White Foundation has partnered with the city of Chicago, the Chicago Park District and taxpayers in the creation and operation of the sports facility.” The gymnastics center is named after Jesse White. “The building is in his name because Jesse White helps to keep kids off the streets. He does good for the kids of Chicago and the boxing community.”

 

Real Combat Media: When do you begin your dialogue with Jesse White?”

 

Wasfi Tolaymat: “I met with Jesse in his office last week. We’ve been talking about the new gym and hall of fame proposals for a couple of months. It is a part of history in Chicago to have something like this. The state puts the money together for community involvement. I’m happy because he listens to me, and wants to go forward with this to keep the gym and hall of fame in Chicago. It’s very nice. Jesse has a vision to keep kids off the streets, help them to get an education, work after school. And be somebody. Jesse White is a very good guy, he tries to help anybody. I’m honored to know him.”

 

Real Combat Media: “How will the new gym-and Chicago Boxing Hall of Fame-be introduced to the Chicago public?”

 

“They are going to give us space for both the new gym and the museum. I want to invite over 100 champions from all over the world for the grand opening of the Chicago Boxing Hall of Fame Museum. The Hall of Fame will have over 5000 boxing memorabilia items from the 1800’s to the present.”

 

Real Combat Media: “You were supposed to be in attendance yesterday evening at the Carlos Molina post fight celebration.”

 

Wasfi Tolaymat: “Chicago has its first world champion in IBF World Light Middleweight champion Carlos Molina. I was supposed to go to his party last night. I’m lucky I’m not dead.”

 

Real Combat Media: “Wasfi, you and wife Cynthia were recently at the funeral of former world heavyweight champion Ken Norton.”

 

Wasfi Tolaymat: “Ken Norton’s funeral was in Jacksonville, Illinois, about 250 miles from Chicago. It’s a shame. When he was alive, everybody wanted to say hello to him, take a picture, and get him to sign an autograph. About 400 people came to Ken’s funeral, including 100 family members. No boxers showed up. We sent in a big flower bouquet. We saw other flower bouquets from the NABA and Don King. The World Boxing Council sent in a championship belt, and they buried Ken with it. I cried when his children started talking/ I cannot grieve enough. How many people knew him, and after he died nobody could come to see him. Only his manager Patrick Tenore came after Ken died in Arizona, nobody else. Ken’s family wanted to bury him in Jacksonville, but Ken’s new wife wanted to bury him in Los Angeles. The day after the funeral, the Marines (Ken was a Marine) fired their gun salute into the air, and the limousine left with the coffin for the airport.”

 

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