Passing a test and enjoying some class

SAN ANTONIO – So you think you love boxing, eh, just can’t get enough of all that action and drama leavened by brutality? Yeah, well you might not love boxing much as you think. But fear not. There is a test available to certify you one way or another: A Regional Golden Gloves tournament in the city of your choosing.

I thought I loved boxing when I awoke Tuesday morning. And I confirmed I love boxing round midnight Saturday. But in between those two days stretched 22 hours, 123 amateur bouts, a fire marshal delay, fair judging, relentless sportsmanship, hopefuls’ victories and losses, the discovery of a few remarkable boxers and a new truth or two, and lots of fatigue. And some doubts about my own fidelity to our beloved sport.

The last 14 months of covering prizefighting, while not quite hopeless, have been much less than their predecessors were. Had boxing been like this when I began to write about it, I would have stopped writing about it. I’m sure I am not the only writer who’s experienced this feeling lately – though perhaps the only one to admit it publicly.

If I was not initially reluctant to cover South Texas’ 2011 Regional Golden Gloves Tournament for a combat-sports magazine, I was decidedly reluctant by the second hour of Tuesday’s opening night. Woodlawn Gym – another City of San Antonio gem on the edge of a picturesque lake – was brimming with emotional Texans. And emotional people breathe lots and sweat plenty too. The gym was suffocating. I noticed this an hour before the fire marshal did. And that began a novel delay as tournament director Skip Wilson pleaded with boxers and trainers to leave the gym and wait on the patio.

There were more than 800 people in a small gym on a Tuesday night to see friends and familiars try their sub-novice hands at our brutal sport. Imagine that. Like you, I’ve been to too many professional shows, sold to the public by well-compensated promoters, that couldn’t imagine a standing-room-only crowd.

At the end of last week’s column, I picked San Antonio Parks & Rec’s Ben Mendoza to surprise some folks in the 201-pound weight of the Sub-novice division. But after Tuesday’s fire-marshal delay, Mendoza’s bout got bumped.

The next morning, good and early, a quixotic Google search for a revised schedule brought me, accompanied by great surprise, to SAGoldenGloves.com, where a current and revised Wednesday bout sheet was already posted. At Bradley-Alexander in Silverdome last month, bout sheets were scarcer than paying fans. And yet here was an amateur tournament providing anyone with a little interest a full listing of the night’s program – eight hours before it began.

Did I mention Skip Wilson puts on a well-organized tourney?

Wednesday night Ben Mendoza, a local school teacher who trains at San Fernando Gymnasium most weeknights, completed his journey from fitness hobbyist to fighter. Seven months of conditioning in a boxing gym had done very little to indicate this would happen, honestly. Mendoza was taller, more serious and better-spoken than most of the students who attended trainer Adrian Rodriguez’s classes, sure, but he also had nervous feet and a natural reluctance to throw a left cross from his southpaw stance in sparring. And it didn’t much matter how many times Rodriguez yelled, “Ben, where’s the 2?”

Then something changed. A week before the Golden Gloves, Mendoza went hard rounds with other aspirants and won them. He started talking like a fighter and acquired a certain swagger. And he realized a straight punch thrown across the body of a 201-pound man is nothing to trifle with.

That realization came with an exclamation point Thursday night when, after winning his first bout Wednesday and finding a feature about himself in the next day’s paper – by the class of San Antonio boxing writers, John Whisler – Mendoza fired a left cross at William Ramon and damaged Ramon’s nose severely enough to win in the first minute.

Mendoza didn’t quite advance to the finals, though, as he ran into a tricky boxer-puncher named Chris Pope, Friday, and was bemused by Pope’s head movement and coiled attack. But there was little shame in that; Pope went on to decision Jose Garcia in the first match of Saturday’s Open Championship and win the Sub-novice heavyweight title.

Saturday was a treat. Where the Novice Championship was held at Woodlawn Gym on Friday – and saw James Leija, son of former world champion “Jesse” James Leija – become Sub-novice light welterweight champion after making his debut just three days before, Saturday’s Open Championship happened in the elegant World War I-era confines of Municipal Auditorium, a few blocks from the Alamo.

By then, though, most of the aforementioned friends and familiars were through with the tournament; while Municipal Auditorium had many more fans than attended the National PALs in October, Saturday’s crowd was well shy of capacity.

Those that did come out saw the United States Marine Corps, under the tutelage of coach Jesse Ravelo, dominate the Open division, with a few notable exceptions – like local stylist Benjamin Whitaker, who beat Justin Gover in a fantastic welterweight scrap.

An interesting note about USMC: About 3/4 of the Marines that were in the tournament have permanent orders that ensure boxing is their fulltime job. They are not paid for their fights. But they are paid to fight.

Don’t be surprised if one of those Marines – lightweight superstar Tommy Roque, who won the tournament’s Outstanding Boxer award – eventually does get paid for his fights. You read it here first: If he chooses not to reenlist, Roque will enjoy a solid career as a prizefighter.

And don’t be surprised, either, if one vote for 2011 Fight of the Year goes to an incredible four-round bout made by San Antonio’s Selina Barrios and USMC’s Melissa Parker. Yes, two 132-pound female amateurs just set a mark to which male prizefighters must start to aspire.

Bart Barry can be reached at [email protected]