“Where I come from, you have to know how to fight… or else.” So said legendary amateur Bill Speary in what could be the motto for Golden Gloves fighters. Once I got over the culture shock, my first experience with the tournament was a revelation.

The ominously flashing ambulance lights led the way to a gymnasium in the outer reaches of deepest Bronx. A lifetime of sanitized TV boxing hadn’t prepared me for what I found inside.

First there was the noise. A borough-rattling cacophony that could have been the soundtrack to a cock fight. The match in progress was a series of awkward lunges, stumbles, and clinches. Each wild hook and uppercut was mirrored by the shadowboxing crowd, popping up and down in their folding chairs with jack-in-the-box regularity. My pulse rate soared as if I had injected the room’s atmosphere into my veins.

Just as I was getting used to the ear-splitting racket and carny ambiance, I saw ‘No Neck’. Actually I saw his baseball cap thrown across the gym, and traced its trajectory to a frightening, muscular weebil-of-a-man. The fight was only seconds old and already he’d seen enough, stomping around like a petulant child. Once the round ended, the real action began. As his fighter returned to the corner, ‘No Neck’ critiqued his performance with a barrage of head slaps and body blows that probably made the guy eager to return to his relatively harmless opponent. Meanwhile, spectators and fellow trainers walked by giving him jovial back slaps and familiar greetings, sometimes in mid-rant. Thankfully, his boy won.

My favorite boxer that night was a kid from Brooklyn who was taking a beating but kept coming forward. Finally, the fight was stopped as his mouth began leaking blood. Exiting the ring, he flashed his crimson-stained teeth at the section of the crowd that had cheered his demise the loudest, and crowed “I hope you bastards got your money’s worth!” I was hooked.

The Golden Gloves made their New York debut back in 1928 as an antidote to juvenile delinquency, back in the day when the prescription for rowdy kids was fisticuffs not pharmaceuticals. It was a strategy soon endorsed by the men in blue, who can still be seen at ringside watching fights they’re grateful not to have to break up.

In the absence of prize money, pride is the payoff for both fans and fighters who carry the hopes of their neighborhood, borough or even race. “Come on blue!” began one fan in reference to a fighter’s shirt color. Then as the action heated up, he switched to “Come on black!” with a slightly mischievous chuckle.

A big part of the appeal is in the unexpected. Never knowing if the next contestant ducking through the ropes will be another Mike Tyson or Joe Palooka Jr. Sometimes, the fighter’s flash outstrips his fundamentals. I saw more than one would-be champ in premature celebration end his evening on the canvas.

Seeing the event firsthand I was heartened by the persistence of rituals in a sport famous for tradition: the two spent fighters spontaneously embracing as the bell sounds, with a mixture of respect and gratitude; or the introduction of former champions at ringside – a once-lean youth now a pot-bellied senior in a Cosby sweater. Worshiping subjects then take turns hailing them like mafia dons. “Your heart was as big as the ocean,” gushed one, before disappearing into the crowd, the proud glint in the ex-champ’s eyes fading ever so slowly.

The L Magazine