Deontay Wilder’s Philly trainer Malik Scott found his purpose through boxing. The sport also saved his life

NEW YORK — At the dimly lit North Philadelphia street corner in the fading hours of the night, Malik Scott knew better than to run. “Big Herc” was coming. Scott could hear him blocks away in his coughing 1964 beige Rambler with its foghorn muffler, adorning corroded wheel wells, and a sliver of wood that sat below the pedals covering the rusted-out hole in the car floor where you could see the passing road under your feet.

Running from crusty, old Fred Jenkins, known as “Big Herc” to the kids at ABC Gym on 26th and Master, meant no gym privileges, which was everything to a then 13-year-old Scott trying to act hard, looking to sell drugs.

Today, Scott, now 41, looks back and a tear trickles down his face at the recollection of where he could have been, and where he is.

“Boxing saved my life; Fred Jenkins saved my life,” Scott said. “Boxing is so crazy, so crazy. I was a kid with nothing, and Fred Jenkins would come looking for me in the middle of the night when my mom didn’t know where I was. I think about where I came from, a skinny kid from North Philadelphia; boxing led me to see the world. I get emotional thinking about it because I know where things could have gone, and I was going that way.”

On Saturday night, Scott will be working an entirely different corner as the head trainer of former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder when he takes on Robert Helenius in the 12-round main event of Fox Sports’ Premier Boxing Champions pay-per-view card from Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

He started boxing when he was 12. He found his way to Jenkins’ ABC Gym, or “The Rec,” where Jenkins still maintains his role as neighborhood guardian. Rome Davis, Scott’s mother, worked for Philco Ford. His father, Leroy Marcellus Scott, was a street gangster. He was incarcerated for a good portion of his adult life, doing 10 years for armed robbery, in addition to other charges.

“My mom and dad were best friends. I had a tight relationship with my father. He was my best friend even though he was incarcerated most of my life,” Scott said. “My mother wasn’t going to see me go that way. Fred Jenkins stayed on us. He would get out of his bed and come and find me in that beat-up Rambler.”

Jenkins, now 66, laughs at the memories of being the buffer between Scott — and many young men like him — and falling into the cracks of North Philly.

“You had to put fear in kids that you could get away with back then ... today you can’t chastise these kids the way you could then,” Jenkins said. “Malik was like a lot of kids still coming up in our neighborhoods. I’m proud to see what he’s turned into. He was always respectful in the gym, but it was when he got outside the gym that trouble started. His mother would call me late at night to go looking for him. There were so many different places I would find Malik, I can’t even remember.

“I’m glad what Malik has turned into. He doesn’t forget where he comes from. He’s going to be a great trainer.”

As a pro, the 6-foot-4 Scott had a career that spanned from 2000 to 2016, amassing a 38-3-1 record, with 13 knockouts. As a teenager, Scott was a rising heavyweight prospect who attracted the attention of promoters and managers.

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Despite coming from a strong amateur background and owning a solid professional record, Scott will tell you he underachieved as a pro. He was undersized, by today’s heavyweight standards, starting out at 213 pounds with little pop on his punches. His defensive style didn’t exactly help, either.

There would be moments when he looked exceptional, while other times he was hard to watch.

His last fight came against Cuban expatriate Luis Ortiz, a 12-round unanimous decision loss on Nov. 12, 2016, in Monte Carlo. It came with an interesting footnote on boxing records website BoxRec.com: “Scott counted knock down in rounds 4, 5 and 9; 4 other attempts at jumping on the canvas not counted.”

Scott prides himself on not having any “mirror issues.” As in, “I have no problem looking at myself in the mirror and saying I looked like [expletive],” he says, laughing. “I never had an ego. I think that was part of my problem as a fighter. I wish I had a fighter’s ego. That ego [which] fighters have at the highest level works for them; it could also work against them, too. No one could tell me what I haven’t said to myself already.”

After losing to Ortiz, Scott tried to get on the undercards of fighters with whom he sparred, to no avail.

“People didn’t want their shows stunk up; I have no problem saying it, I was horrible,” he says. “What helps me as a trainer is I’ve known every point of view you can have. I know how it feels when you embarrass yourself when you win and when you lose. I know how it feels when you’re shelved. I could have done more when I fought.”

After his last fight, Scott entered boxing’s netherworld, working as a sparring partner and aide-de-camp for the next several years. One glaring positive emerged: In all his sparring and training camp work, he had built firm relationships. One of those was with Wilder, a long, lean heavyweight from Tuscaloosa, Ala., with thunderous power in his right hand. Coincidentally, he and Wilder squared off in a 2014 undercard in Puerto Rico. The fight would become one of Scott’s three career losses.

Wilder (42-2-1, 41 KOs) held the WBC heavyweight title for five years, before suffering his first loss in a rematch with Tyson Fury in February 2020, when his head trainer Mark Breland, the 1984 Olympic welterweight gold medalist, threw in the towel when Wilder was seriously hurt.

“I remember how down I was about Deontay suffering his first loss and I hated to see him at that moment,” Scott recalled. “I made sure I saw him before I left that night to tell him that I loved him and that he’ll be back.”

Five hours later, when Scott arrived home in Palmdale, Calif., he got a call at about 7 a.m. He looked down at the phone and it was Wilder. Scott asked him how he was feeling. The two spoke about the fight. Scott was candid with Wilder about what he did right and what he did wrong. Scott called it one of the most emotional conversations he ever had in his 29 years associated with boxing.

“This is one of my brothers, and I poured it all out,” he said. “Deontay told me Mark was gone. He asked me which direction we should go for the head trainer position. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he wanted me to come on, but I told him, let’s think about it together, give it some time, that next week we’ll come up with some names.”

Scott hung up the phone and went back to sleep.

Forty minutes later, Wilder called back.

“Bro, I want you to be my head trainer; there’s no one else in the world I trust,” he told Scott. “There’s no one else in the world that could match your knowledge. I believe this is who you are. I don’t trust anyone’s knowledge or my life the way I do with you. I can get this title back with you, brother.”

Before Wilder could finish, Scott was on board. Working his first fight as lead trainer, Scott watched Wilder duel Fury a third time, which led to another Fury victory, though not without Wilder looking far better and showing considerable courage, rising from three knockdowns to produce boxing’s 2021 Fight of the Year.

“I believe that you have to have a connection with your trainer, and Malik and I have known each other for a very long time and have had a connection since the first time we met,” Wilder said recently. “Malik is a boxing historian. He knows his craft and art. He knows how to break down certain things. I need people around me that I trust. I know him. I trust him like a brother. I love him. I’m very proud to have him on my team. He now has a full impact on my team and we’re going all the way back to the top again.”

The dimly lit North Philly street corners are past tense.

Today, it’s easy to find Malik Scott, sitting in the corner of the main event.