Renowned boxing trainer dies in Las Vegas after seven decades in sport

Saturday, Aug. 2, 1997 | 9:16 a.m.

Tocco was considered an expert trainer and worked with numerous world champions during his seven decades in the sport. He operated the Ringside Gym in Las Vegas for 41 years, and got involved in boxing in his native St. Louis at the age of 12.

Holmes said Tocco belongs in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

"A Hall of Fame is to honor the people who have seen it all and done it all, and Johnny has been around everybody who was anybody in boxing and he saw just about anything that happened in boxing," said Holmes, who worked out regularly at Tocco's gym when in Las Vegas.

Marc Ratner, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, said Tocco "was my closest friend in boxing."

Tocco was an invaluable aid to the commission, Ratner said, helping teach its inspectors how trainers would attempt to bypass its rules when taping fighters' hands.

"He would show us the legal way to do it and then the ways that guys would try to do it illegally," Ratner said.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said Tocco was a giant in the business who had an abiding love for the sport.

"He loved the sport and was never hung up on the monetary aspects. He just loved to be involved. He was one of the few guys around driven more by a passion for what he was doing than money. He was a terrific, terrific guy," he said.

Services were pending.