A cold wind blows off the Cape Fear River on a steel-gray twilight in the winter of 1997. Two young men exit the Wilmington Boxing Center, heavily wrapped in sweat clothes, and begin jogging north toward the train tracks. An elevated pickup peels wheels, pulling onto Fourth Street as a garbled, barely audible “######s” tumbles out to the street. Inside the gym, the nervous energy of live sparring is palpable in the chill air.
In the middle of the building’s venerable old ring, Donnell Holmes and William High are completely absorbed in one of the world’s oldest and sincerest forms of dialogue. Unspoken but unequivocal statements are anticipated, received and answered in turn; assertions are underwritten with exertion, and losses are paid in pain. Holmes is into his 10th round—High is his third fresh opponent.
High is a no-nonsense longshoreman with an easy smile and a shaved brown head. At 31, he is the oldest (and largest) man on Coach’s team. He has a broad face and looks like Charles Barkley underneath bulky, sweat-soaked headgear. He wears two weighty jerseys, and his sweat is dripping onto the canvas; he has to lose 5 pounds for the team’s next fight, which is two weeks away. He has Holmes in the far corner of the ring, and he is parlaying his 40-pound weight advantage into a defense against the much quicker light-heavyweight. With his right shoulder, he’s pinioning the younger man’s tall, thin frame into the corner buckle and thudding body shots into his tight midsection.
Donnell Holmes is tall and olive-skinned with a broad, flat nose and a contagious smile. With his clean good looks, he embodies the notion of youthful confidence. Though he is given to brash statements, in the ring he is all business; he has won more than 100 USA Boxing (Amateur Boxing Association) fights—the majority by knockout—and he plans on one day being champion of the world. He has traveled to several countries with the U.S. National Team, but his heart belongs to the small burg of Ivanhoe, North Carolina. Until the mid-’90s (and the emergence of a girl named Fabian), he was the Wilmington Boxing Center’s only real shot at national recognition.
At 24, Holmes is a rail-thin professional trucker. Under layers of sopping wet sweat clothes, his muscles bulge through paper-thin skin. The 178-pound limit for his light-heavyweight division is about 15 pounds under the weight his DNA demands of his 6-foot-2 frame. But that’s where Morgan wants him, and that’s the weight he’s maintained for three years. Though talk between them is sparse and matter-of-fact, he’s as much of a son to Coach as flesh and blood would be.
The ropes are safe haven for the experienced—a redoubt to rest and catch wind—and Holmes is tired. He is hunched over in the corner, his gloves up protecting his face. He absorbs High’s body shots, and at the end of every barrage lets go with an uppercut. He’s aiming for the big man’s chin but finds only a defensive shield of forearms and 16-ounce gloves.
The two men are locked into position there, and neither has the apparent energy to take the debate back to the center of the ring. Coach watches from the far corner. Though this is one of dozens of sparring rounds he’ll see tonight, one of hundreds this week, no one mistakes the man’s dead-calm demeanor for lack of interest. The two men trading blows are like sons to him, and they are practicing a craft that, after nearly five decades, is more viscerally relevant to the aging man than religion.
Whack—whack—whack! High throws a three-punch combination into Donnell’s midsection. The graceful light-heavyweight pulls in his elbows and absorbs the blows with gloves and forearms. Mechanically, he counters with a three-punch barrage of his own, a whistling exhale marking the exertion. The last shot, a right cross, lands firmly on the side of the big man’s head. High burrows back into him, pushing hard into the corner buckle. It’s clear the shot has found its mark.
“####,” the heavyweight spits from behind an oversized mouthpiece, and adjusts his headgear.
Coach watches from the far corner while untying the gloves of a panting, junior-age athlete. A bevy of other boxers surrounds the ring, following the action as they labor through a regimented workout; three to five rounds of sparring are followed by eight rounds on the heavy bags and 10 more on the jump rope.
A boxer named Rico, done with his workout and already in street clothes, watches with a devilish grin. The 26-year-old is an on-again, off-again member of the team. He stands just over 6 feet, with a medium build, and is as black as a moonless Carolina night. He carries a menacing, cold-blooded Jervay projects stare. If it weren’t for Coach’s guidance and grounding, he’d probably be dead or in jail.
“Hit him, High,” Rico yells across the ring.
High recovers from the right cross to the head and throws a barrage of body punches in answer.
“One-two to the body, then come up to the head,” Rico yells. “Punish him.”
Donnell wraps High’s arms, stands straight up and arches his back, pulling the bigger man into the safety of the corner. He looks over the heavyweight’s shoulder and glares at Rico. The two young men go back many years. They have beaten the blood out of each other in that same ring, watched as the other was knocked unconscious in competition and shared thousands of arduous and painful moments in the old gym. A mediocre boxer despite his stormy temper, Rico is clearly having fun with his celebrated teammate.
“He ain’t nothin’, High,” he says. “He overrated. He scared.”
Releasing the armlock, Donnell throws a quick barrage into High’s midsection and brings a right cross back to the head. The longshoreman curses in frustration at being caught with the same combination, and throws one in defense.
“Bring the uppercut,” Rico yells. “He got a weak chin—bring the uppercut.”
The action lulls as High burrows the smaller man into the corner. Donnell brings his arms in for a protective covering and looks over High’s hunched shoulder.
“This one’s for you, Rico,” he yells across the ring. He lets go with another rapid barrage to the body and then brings a right uppercut to High’s waiting chin. The shot lifts the heavyweight’s head with a whack. A dozen sets of eyes wince around the ring. The big man is hurt and instinctively wraps Donnell’s arms, leaning hard into the corner.
“Come back right away,” Rico yells. “Go to the body, he can’t take the body shots—he weak.”
“You want body?” Donnell yells back.
Turning his right shoulder into the bigger man and then rotating his left into the action, he frees up space between them. High’s gloves go up, forming a protective shield in front of his face. Whack—whack—whack ... whack! Donnell lets go with a four-punch combination to the gut. It ends with a punishing uppercut to the solar plexus. The crisp, clear whistling sound of his own exhaling is followed by the gasping sound of High losing his wind. The big man instinctively drops his elbows to protect the midsection, and Donnell goes back to the head with a three-punch combination. The heavyweight is stunned and gropes awkwardly to tie up the smaller man.
“You got ’im now, High, come right back,” Rico yells through a wide grin.
“Shut up,” High spits from around his mouthpiece.
“You want some more, Rico?” Donnell says from within the confines of High’s tie-up.
“You lookin’ sloppy,” Rico calls back.
“Shut up,” High says as Donnell extricates his long arms from the bigger man’s grasp.
“How ’bout this,” Donnell says as he throws another barrage to the body.
High’s shoulders drop as he moves to protect his midsection.
“You like that one, Rico?”
“That all you got?” Rico rejoins.
“Shut up,” High spits through his mouthpiece.
Donnell goes low, into High’s protective elbow, waits two beats and then goes again for the body. High absorbs the shots with a gasping exhale.
“How ’bout this,” Donnell says, throwing another body barrage and then going for the head.
“That’s enough,” Coach yells succinctly, and all conversation stops.
The 10-second warning bell sounds on the round clock, and Donnell sidesteps, turns and maneuvers High onto the corner buckle, all in one graceful move. He throws two final three-punch combinations, catching the side of High’s head with back-to-back hooks. The end-of-round bell calls out shrilly, and both men drop their gloves, exhausted. High sags into the corner as Donnell moves to talk with Coach and suck down water.
Minutes later, the two men step wearily out of the ring, and another of the center’s rising stars ducks in. National featherweight contender Deirdre Fabian moves lithely around the ring, throwing shadow punches followed by the crisp sounds of exhaling. The physical education teacher and fourth-year boxer is completely focused—she’s pushing for her second Golden Gloves berth at the 1998 championships in Anaheim, California.
Taking the ring with her is a fresh face at the center, Brenda Gerringer, who stands almost 6 inches taller than Fabian and enjoys a 20-pound weight advantage. She’s trained for three short months in a gym in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and has traveled 45 minutes north to Wilmington for Coach’s fabled guidance. Over the phone, she boldly told the man that she’ll be fighting for the Golden Gloves title in the coming year.
It’s almost 8 o’clock, workouts are winding down, and the small throng of boxers is thinning. Donnell and High find heavy bags for their post-sparring workout rounds as Coach talks with Gerringer. His voice is quiet and gentle, difficult to hear.
“I want you to come out strong,” he says to the newcomer. “I want to see what you got. But keep it under control. Keep it crisp.”
He sends her to the opposite corner—where High and Donnell had been entangled minutes before—and calls Fabian over for her pre-sparring talk. The nerves ratchet up in Fabian’s stomach as Coach squeezes water from a bottle over her mouthpiece and down her throat. Her head is covered with bulky, protective padding and the 16-ounce gloves look like basketballs on her hands.
“Go full speed,” Coach says, nonchalantly—almost as an aside—as he fidgets with the laces on her gloves and checks her headgear. “Don’t hold back.”
Though he’s saying only what needs to be said, and saying it calmly, Fabian comprehends she is to be an instrument in Coach’s first (and likely last) lesson to Gerringer. The young woman will either show her mettle or pay for her impudence. The clock chirps, indicating a minute to go before the beginning of the next round. Fabian shakes out her arms and throws a flurry of shadow punches; the nerves are crawling up her throat.
When the bell rings to start the round, Fabian heads briskly for Gerringer’s side of the ring. It’s her custom to intercept opponents in their own territory. Gerringer’s pretty face is puckered into something of a scowl by the tight headgear; long blonde hair falls out of the back of the piece. Her dark brown eyes widen with Fabian’s rapid approach.
She moves to meet the shorter woman near the center of the ring and leaves her gloves low. Gerringer doesn’t see the first shot coming, and Fabian snaps her head back with a stiff jab. That unambiguous shot to the nose has the same effect for virtually every boxer—an atavistic, instinctual brain process questions the absurdity of the situation and tells her, overwhelming and unmistakably, to exit by whatever means necessary.
Her sight and thought processes are momentarily stunned, and before she can blink through the funk, Fabian attacks the body and knocks the wind out of her. She nearly doubles over, and it’s all she can do to bring her elbows in for protection. That’s when she feels the first of two shots—a cross and a hook—that rock her head back. She hasn’t breathed since the onslaught started, and she’ll soon be gasping for air through the face-pinching headgear and around a bloated mouthpiece. Between gasps, Fabian will be punishing her already bleeding nose.
In the fleeting instant she’s afforded between barrages and the brutal stars-inducing sting of stiff shots to the head, Gerringer realizes that hell is in North Carolina; it will be hours before she’ll comprehend just how far away Anaheim is. She spends the next two minutes and 20 seconds backpedaling, taking nasty shots and looking desperately for protection on the ropes. Fabian is relentless. By the time the bell rings, Gerringer is physically exhausted and emotionally shot—and oblivious to the fact that Fabian has only been using her B-game. In three minutes, she hasn’t thrown a full-power punch.
In 1993, Coach left Fabian with one emphatic (and repeated) statement regarding her curiosity about boxing on his team: “I don’t train women.” But Fabian—a lifelong sports junkie who wrestled on the boys’ team in junior high—didn’t take rejection easily. She asked for a chance to train at the gym and Coach capitulated. She made it through his rigorous workouts, and the man’s intuition picked up on something, some intangible with special meaning for trainers who have watched the grueling sport for nearly half a century—the hint of a will that transcends gender and gets right to the hard nut of the kind of intestinal fortitude that can’t be taught. By 1994—a year after the courts forced USA Boxing to admit women—Fabian had opened the gender door at the center, and the girls came trickling in. By 2000, Coach would have a bevy of accomplished female athletes.
He would later say that in some ways women are better to coach than men. For starters, they listen. They listen to directions, and they carry them out. It’s amusing, he would say, that women talk and socialize with their opponents before fights; the men stay far apart or stare each other down in icy silence. But all traits have essentialist ramifications; those open and social feminine bearings bring with them an elevated state of emotion.
And so it wasn’t such a surprise that Gerringer wept after that first round under Fabian’s hard tutelage, wept right there in the middle of that four-posted altar to stoic male indifference—that sanctum of repressed emotion and hard demeanor. The display was born of stinging frustration and pain, and it came silently at first, then more discernibly, until it was almost uncontrollable.
The spectacle was a novel one in the old gym—a refreshing break from the same combinations thrown into the same bags, beneath the same stench of sweaty leather that melted one day into the next. However unaccustomed he might have been to spectacle and weeping pugilists, Coach was an old soul with a lifetime’s experience fixing the broken faces of his athletes. He comforted Gerringer’s tears away, packed her into her car and pointed her south on Highway 17. She headed back to Myrtle Beach and out of his life—for almost 18 hours.
Next day, Gerringer was back. And the day after that. In 1998, she went to the national tournament in Anaheim (though she didn’t place). Fabian lost a bloody and controversial split decision in that year’s featherweight title fight. In 1999, she won, giving Coach his first title belt since leaving the Army. A year later, she hung up her gloves—with about as much conviction as Michael Jordan and Mike Tyson.
In 2002, Coach was chosen to take the U.S. National Women’s Team to compete in Turkey. When he came home, he retired. Later that year, he was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in North Carolina and the Flint Afro-American Hall of Fame in Michigan. Today, he trains Donnell “The Real Touch of Sleep” Holmes, who is 25-0 as a professional heavyweight, and ranked number eight in the world with the WBC (World Boxing Council).
I just consider it common sense. It is why weight classes exist.
Some of you are seriously underestimating how hard these guys hit.
I am shocked this thread has gone 6 pages.
Me too SJ. Obviously there is some interest there.J
And to repeat - those arms are much bigger than the ones we are debating.... hard to even imagine, but true.
I am shocked this thread has gone 6 pages.My opinion was this. I think alot of you guys are forgeting the fact that the featherweight boxer would have to basically jump up to hit me in the face. This removes ALOT of power from his punches. That combined with the fact that a featherweight punch wouldnt hurt me as much as a heavier fighter means that I seriously doubt the featherweight would destroy me in the 1st round. BUT punches to my ribs and back would still hurt quite a bit. So the conclusion I came up with my friends is that I would probably last around 5 rounds before Id be completely tired as hell and those punches to the ribs would take their toll. I dont think there is little doubt a featherweight would beat someone like me eventually but I seriously doubt it would be an ### whipping in one round. Now if I was able to get in one hard punch on the featherweight he might go down but I think it would be very hard to get one clean punch in on them.
