Amateur Boxing in South Texas--The Wolfepack Takes Home The Gold!

photo courtesy of Jeff Stockton Photography

For those of you who have not been to an amateur boxing tournament, I want to tell you: if you get a chance, you should go.  The South Texas amateur boxing season heated up this past week with more than 300 people competing in the winner-take-a-gold-medal tournament, and it was well worth the $5 admission. 

Amateur boxing is very different from professional boxing, though the characters both kinds of shows attract are quite similar.  Headgear ensures less major injuries and makes knockouts infrequent, punches count independently of their relative power, and a standing 8 count gives a fighter who isn't answering punches a chance to recover and does not count against that fighter in the final score.

Fights are 3 rounds, 1 to 2 minutes long, which leads to the final and most significant difference between amateur and professional bouts: in the higher tier of amateur bouts, the fighters usually fight for the entire three rounds.  I mean FIGHT.  In my opinion, this is the major bonus of watching the amateurs--in comparison, the Latin Fury 10 fights bored me to sleep!

It doesn't hurt, at such a tournament, to be rooting for a winning team of fighters. I had that opportunity this weekend, sitting with an interesting new batch of Wolfepack fighters.

Many of you know Ann Wolfe as the trainer of professional fighter James Kirkland, whose career is currently 'on ice'.  Having learned to cope with any and every kind of situation, Ms. Wolfe embodies the spirit of a phoenix, and she has risen through the ashes of poverty, homelessness, professional barriers, and injuries.  Most recently, she has risen over crushing disappointment, after her dreams of guiding a champion boxer all the way to the top were also put on ice.

Literally, within a week of Kirkland's arrest, Ms. Wolfe attracted a new bunch of boxers, The new boxers included siblings nicknamed Sweet'n'low, Ru, and Diamond, who were recent immigrants from Africa, and happened to have a natural talent for the sport.  Other new boxers included a guy who had come over from another gym, a guy who had been at the gym for a while and had recently decided to fight, and a quiet white boy nicknamed Zeus.

For the past 3 months, Ms. Wolfe has worked these boxers out morning and night, taking them through physical hellishness of a kind only she can inflict.  The gym is closed in during the Austin summer heat, and it is only after a physical suffering barrier has been met and crossed that she relieves the boxers with a breeze through the opening of the warehouse door.  She puts one of them in one corner while the others take turns fighting that one for 1 1/2 minute rounds, to teach each one about reaching down for heart within the extreme exhaustion that will come after the adrenaline rush that accompanies each boxer up the stairs into the ring.  Et cetera.

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?