Goody Petronelli

Guerino "Goody" Petronelli (12 October 1923 – 29 January 2012) was an American boxing trainer and co-manager.

With his brother Pasquale (Pat), Petronelli managed and trained world middleweight champion Marvin Hagler. His other fighters included Robbie Sims, Steve Collins, and Kevin McBride. In 1983, the Petronellis received The Al Buck Award for Manager of the Year by the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

He was born in Brockton, Massachusetts. Petronelli was a successful amateur welterweight boxer who served in the US Navy during World War II. He had grown up as a close friend of Rocky Marciano. Both their fathers had emigrated from the Abruzzo region of Italy. Petronelli was also a friend of Marciano's trainer, Allie Colombo.

The Petronelli brothers opened their Brockton gym in 1969, the same year both Marciano and Colombo died (in a plane crash and an auto accident respectively.) Petronelli focused on training fighters, relying on his Navy medical experience as a cut man in the ring, while Pat mainly handled the business aspects, including fight scheduling and purse negotiations.

The teen-aged Hagler, who had moved with his mother from Newark, New Jersey to Brockton in 1967, began training at the gym shortly after it opened. Under Petronelli's tutelage, he became the National AAU 165-pound champion in 1973. Though Hagler was a top-ranked middleweight title contender for most of the 1970s, the Petronellis found it difficult to line up high-profile opponents willing to risk facing him. Hagler's race and the fact that he was a southpaw, and a good one at that, were cited as primary obstacles. The brothers often had to travel with Hagler to other fighters' home towns for his bouts.

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