What is it about Boxing that you love so much?

[greynotsoold]

I grew up hearing boxing stories from both my parents. my father was born in the 1920s, in Pittsburgh, so he told me about Billy Conn and fritzie Zivic. Rocky Marciano was also a favorite of his, and he taught me the value of turning your body into your punches and punching short. He never ever wanted me to be involved in boxing in anyway.
My mother came to LA from Butte (where I live now) at 18, and boxing was huge in LA at the time. There were multiple fight cards every night of the week, and my mother went often. So I heard about Art Aragon and lauro Salas from her, from the time I was 3,4 years old. She used to take me, by bus, to the fights at the Olympic Auditorium; this was when the bus station in downtown LA was hell on earth. Bums, winos and general low lifes would come up and proposition my mother and she'd tell them to get lost. I was 4,5,6 years old and would stand there trying to look tough. Then, after the fights, we'd take the bus to a friend's house on Alpine and my dad would pick us up there at 2am after he got off work.
I love boxing because it has always been in me; when I was a kid I wanted to box from the time I could walk. When you start doing it, you can approach it like a barbarian and get hit all the time. Or you can understand it as an exercise in the utilization and control of distance, and that takes most of the risk factor out of it. I love teaching it- at 10 I had my three year old sister and my 5 year old cousins gloved up and working off the jab. It bothers me that, for the last decade, just about every time I watch the fights I get disappointed, but I can still sit for hours watching videos of guys that know how to fight.

[Master]

History, legacy, excitement, knock outs, careers being made and you being part of it.