Boxing Notes

I went looking for the atmospheres and values of the great boxing of the sixties and seventies.

Ropes, wooden planks, nails, torn carpets, peeling walls, worn-out shoes, feet, gym bags, towels, robes, sacred images, grimaces of pain, laughter of victory. Boxing.
From the “poor” gym, Academia de Boxeo Henry Garcia Suarez, in Holguin (Cuba), have come Olympic and world champions. And you’d never guess.Boys begin training at the age of 8-10 years, sometimes without headgear and shoeless, chasing victory with bare hands and with many dedications: for themselves, their families, their country. In Buenos Aires, the Boxing Club Ferrobaires gym, is in a space directly below the old abandoned Constitucion station. The long march to become champion of the world starts by slipping into a cement hole, down a rickety rusty ladder. Rain or shine, down there it’s always dark. From behind the door a crack of light appears and some noise, of gloves and voices. As the President of Italian Boxing Federation said “It seems a paradox, but the ring is one of the few places in the world where men are really equal, where they fight for their dreams regardless of status, race or culture. Alone, without even difference in clothing, they face each other as equals, without the help of machines, without external support, without any outside help”