FIGHT NIGHT

After an invite from Alderwoman Kirner (who has judged amateur boxing for 12 years), I was off to watch an amateur boxing match last Friday at the South Broadway Athletic Club at 2301 South 7th Street. Being a neopyte to the St. Louis amateur boxing scene, the prospect of watching the fights was exciting.

I know St. Louis has a rich boxing history, but it was interesting to actually be in a hungry amateur atmosphere while learning about all the different gyms in the city. Its a world many people (myself included) don't realize is thriving in St. Louis.

The kids were far younger than I expected, ranging in age from 8 to 16

The crowd was larger, and the atmosphere more dynamic than I expected

The action itself was a whole lot of swinging without a whole lot of hitting due to the age of the fighters, but the action was quite intense.

As if giving a nod to pg-13 movies, the "ring girls" didn't come out until the older kids fought. Wasn't too sure how I felt about the "ring girls"

The show itself was entertaining, but also disturbing. Seeing all those kids fighting in a ring drowned in Budweiser logos seemed antithetical to good taste and the advertising laws dedicated to protecting kids from being assailed to drink young and often. If Budweiser had to give up their frogs because they were seen as kid-friendly, something should be done about this.

99 percent of the kids fighting were black. On its head, this wasn't surprising, and tomes are dedicated to describing the socio-economic conditions that create this phenomenon, but I don't have the space to go into that here.

What I will talk about was the music pumping through the place. Generally speaking, I loathe hypocrisy, so let me just say that I grew up on rap music, much of it gangsta rap. As a result, I listen to it now, especially because it is necessary to hear and understand every part of African-American culture which I am a part of. But having said that, it was still disconcerting to hear it playing with all those little kids and their families attending.

If I had a stone for every time I (loudly) heard ni***, glock, bitc* , pu*** and crack pumping through the loudspeaker like nobody's business, I'd make the Great Wall of China look like Huckleberry Finn's picket fence. Now, I'm not naive. Have these kids probably heard this stuff a million times, yes. But that still doesn't mean it's the right thing to play in a venue like that.

I went with fellow blogger-in-arms Travis Reems. We talked about the value of boxing to inner-city youth, and pondered whether or not it was a useful tool for escaping the maladies of poverty.

Though boxing and football are violent sports, there is an undeniable truth and honor to controlled combat. Though there was some trash-talking, it was clear these kids were learning and practicing good sportsmanship in the heat of battle. It is clear that boxing is instilling the virtues of hard work, dedication and perseverance that it takes to be successful in the long term.

Obviously, I wish that more African-American kids could make it out of negative environments through education, and not sports, but without having done a survey on how these boxers turn out later in life, its safe to say that it probably is having a positive impact on their lives for the reasons mentioned above.

Here is a pictue of Alderwoman Kirner doing her thing