In the late 1970’s, Golden Gloves Boxing was big in Jackson, Tennessee. Some of the local boxers, like Jackie Beard (pictured above), were good enough that they were winning national AAU titles. I lived near Jackson and some of my friends expressed an interest in going to watch matches. At the time, I didn’t watch much boxing but decided it was a good idea to go even if it was just because it would be something different to do.
The local Golden Gloves tournaments were held at the Jackson Coliseum, which is now called Oman Arena. The district tournament was started on a Thursday and went through the weekend. The following week, the winners from the district participated in the regional tournament, also held in Jackson. Our first experience with Golden Gloves was on the first night of the district tournament. The success of the Jackson Boxing Club boxers had increased interest in boxing. More young men in the area decided they would try their hand at boxing. This included several guys that didn’t have any professional guidance or training. This meant that they had a large number of matches to go through during the first night of the district tournament. They had so many matches to get through that they set up two rings side by side and had matches going on at the same time. This made for a more entertaining night. If the match in one ring got boring, you could watch the other match. It also meant that you might miss something going on in the ring you weren’t watching. With inexperience being the rule rather than the exception, there was an opportunity for lots of mistakes and inadvertent comedy.
First there were a lot of kids that were too young to participate in the official contest but were already in training. They participated in exhibition matches. Then the inexperienced guys were having to fight well trained kids from the boxing clubs. This resulted in several KOs and TKOs. The main match that stood out for us that night involved a kid that seemed to have know idea about basic rules of boxing. At one point he had his opponent in a headlock. He was winding to punch his victim when the referee stopped him. The official didn’t stop the match until later when he noticed teeth marks in the side of the guy who was holding the other in the headlock.
After that, I was hooked. Over the next few years, I would return to as many of the Golden Gloves events that I could. The second year we went, we felt like we knew more about boxing. We thought we could spot good boxers. One night, a young boxer was coming to the ring that we decided looked like he would be easily beaten. We joked amongst ourselves that he didn’t look like a boxer and he was about to get his butt kicked. The guy lost the match, but he did pretty good. I like to think that we said that he did better than we expected, but I can’t really remember. I really hope that we ended up saying something nice about him because later that night, he came and sat in the crowd right in front of us, joining his parents who had been there all night.
I didn’t know most of the people that we saw box but we did have a couple of friends that tried it out. Our first friend, who I will not name, played several different sports but didn’t have any experience boxing. I’m not sure what he did for training but I’m pretty sure it was limited to whatever he did at his own house. When his match started, it was soon obvious that he was not prepared and would not last. He got knocked down several times in the first round but did survive. The second round would not last long. While he didn’t get knocked out, the referee would stop the match soon after our friend was knocked down a couple more times. Before he left the ring, he argued with the referee telling him things like, “You are taking away my dream!” and “I put in 4 weeks of training for this!” When he finally left the ring area, he was so dazed that he walked away from the direction of the dressing rooms.
A few years later, another friend, that I didn’t know as well, showed up in the ring on opening night. His match didn’t last very long. But I remember this match because I knew this guy and because of the way it ended. I was sitting watching the match like normal. I blinked my eyes like I would normally blink them. When my eyes opened from this normal blink, my friend had been hit by a punch. The punch was so hard and delivered in just the right way that my friend was literally knocked off his feet. My eyes opened to the sight of his feet in the air along with the rest of his body.
I went to Golden Gloves events for about 4 years in all. Over those years, I never stayed late enough see the exceptional boxers like Jackie Beard. They saved his matches for the end of the night to keep the crowd around. While I would like to have stayed for the good matches, but these matches were on school nights and we had to be home early. The early rounds of the tournaments would sometimes last until midnight. So we got to see more mediocre talent. That probably fits my taste a little better.