BY STEVE JANOSKI
For Joe Zabry, the "Fight Night" he’s hosting on Friday at the Boonton Elks’ Club is more than just an amateur boxing show — it’s a light at the end of a long, winding tunnel that will signal a triumph in the wake of several years of broken business deals and countless setbacks.
His story is not unique in the boxing world, which is second only to politics in viciousness and rarely has room for good men.
But as he sits in his office, its walls crowded with pictures of famous fighters, past and present, surrounding an expansive aerial shot of New York City’s Flat Iron Building, he has the look of man who finally has a clear purpose.
Zabry, a youthful-looking 36-year-old, has a spiral of tattoos winding down his left arm and is rarely seen without a baseball cap and a whistle around his neck. He’s a vigorous talker, a mover, bursting at the seams with energy and ideas and optimism reminiscent of Kerouac’s Dean Moriarty.
Boxing has been in his blood since the start: both his father and uncle worked as mechanics during the day and part-time trainers at night. He started at an early age and, between boxing, MMA, has had well over 100 fights.
He left at 18 for the Air Force; 11 years later, he returned to New Jersey, and continued to fight while at the same time becoming involved in several gyms that left him with something of a bad taste in his mouth.
Now though, on the third floor of an old brick building on Main Street in Boonton, he seems to have found a permanent home for Aces Boxing Club.
The gym, like Zabry, is a mixture of old-school and new-school. Freshly painted gray sheetrock contrasts sharply with where the red brick peeks through, and brand-new heavy bags are wrapped with peeling duct tape around their midsections.
A black boxing ring sits in the corner of the gym. Someone is always using it.
Zabry has moved within walking distance of the gym; now, he says, there are times that he doesn’t drive for two weeks at a time. He buys lunch from the deli downstairs, and eats it in his office, which looks out over the training area. He always answers the phone.
And slowly, in a trickle that has turned into a stream, they’ve come, walking down bustling Main Street, through the gray metal doors, up the two flights of wooden steps to the chorus of slaps and thuds that accompany all boxing gyms.
Friday night will be the amateur debut for five out of the six boxers from Aces, and they, along with Zabry, will see exactly how much their work has paid off. The fights are as important to the coach as they are to the fighters.
"I always tell these guys – your wins are my wins, your losses are my losses, your lessons in the ring are my lessons in the ring," he said.
If they lose, he says, he wants them to use it as motivation to have a better showing in eight weeks, when he’s planning his next card – to show a fighter’s heart, even in the face of defeat.
This is difficult, and he knows it; Zabry is well aware of the psychological aspects of fighting, and that’s one of the reasons he’s built Aces as he has – more "club," less "gym."
He speaks on things like the "circle of life in a boxing gym," where younger fighters look up to the older ones, more experienced ones, and the more experienced ones look up to the Golden Gloves — and maybe, one day, Olympic – champs.
But it all starts with Friday, with the fight itself. May 25 is D-Day, and nothing, he says, sharpens the mind and the body like preparing for a fight.
Even if they never fight again, they will remember that night for the rest of their lives.
"(The fights) give all of our boys the option of being a local, hometown hero," he says. "Even if they go nowhere with this….we’re going to make them feel like a rock star for that night in front of all their friends and family."
And regardless of wins and losses, boxing has given many of them the experience that adulthood often lacks: the feeling of being a part of something greater than one’s self, of knowing what it’s like to truly spill blood and sweat next to someone else in the pursuit of a common goal.
It’s these bonds, forged by the hours of physical misery in preparation for a fight — be it in a ring in Boonton or the mountains of Afghanistan — that are often the strongest.
It is also a way of reaching back to a more gritty time and pulling the idea of hard lessons, of earning your pride, out from the past.
Boxing has always been an inner-city, immigrant sport, Zabry says, but as the families prospered and left the tenements of Paterson and Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth, there became little reason to try and earn money with one’s fists.
For many a suburbanite kid that walks through his doors, Dad wasn’t the boxer — Grandpa was, and putting on the gloves reignites the connection that so many families have with fighting.
And the fighter’s story, he says, is eternal.
"If you like history, you like boxing. If you like love stories, you like boxing. If you like rags to riches, you like boxing. Boxing is about stories, fighting is about stories," he says.
These are the stories he see every day, walking up his stairs, dropping their backpacks, putting on the gloves and the headgear, and proving to themselves that they are, in fact, men. That they’re not scared.
"There’s a lot of lessons in that ring that you learn that apply to life… a whole level of self-awareness, responsibility, and accountability," he says. "The boys that don’t understand it, don’t get it, they normally drop out."
The ones that do end up having the stories worth telling.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/153427975_Pulling_Aces_from_a_crowded_deck.html?page=all
Showing posts with label Golden Gloves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Golden Gloves. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Young fighter's quest for a lasting legacy
By Steve Janoski
In the back of what looks like a typical general fitness gym in Whippany sits an Olympic size boxing ring and a long row of heavy bags that sway and flutter like the ocean breakers over the rippled hardwood floor.
It’s here, among the smell of sweat and old hand wraps, that athletes are put through sweltering torture to the snapping rhythms of punches hitting leather meant to forge them into fighters.
One man here has risen a bit faster than the rest, though, and when Final Round Boxing’s pride and joy gets in the ring and goes to work, the whole gym stops and takes notice.
At 24 years old, he’s a relative newcomer to a sport where most champions train from their first steps, but as soon as he steps through the ring ropes, it becomes undeniable that the kid’s got a natural aptitude for violence; as he shadowboxes, his body hurls around like a gyroscope in a brutal ballet designed to devastate the hardiest of men.
Vinny O’Brien, lean and chiseled with slicked-back black hair, started boxing around three years ago and immediately showed his aptitude in the squared circle: a finalist in the 2008 NJ Golden Gloves tournament, he won the 141 pound title in the same tournament in 2010.
This Friday night, the East Hanover native will return to the Prudential Center in Newark for his third professional fight in the hopes of staying undefeated as he tries to turn a fledgling pro career into something bigger — much bigger.
A bell signals the end of the round, and his trainer, Lou Esa, steps between the ropes himself to work the focus mitts for the young welterweight nicknamed “The Lion.”
In another life, the mammoth 6 foot 6 inch Esa, 59, was a professional heavyweight who fought on Muhammad Ali’s undercards. With blonde hair and a huge smile, he talks with the swaggering confidence of one who’s knocked out 16 men.
He trains O’Brien every day, and calls him a “work in progress” whose maniacal attitude towards training is proving to be his finest asset.
“He’s only had eight amateur fights and two pro fights…but he works every day like it’s his last and I love that about him,” said Esa.
With every session he improves, the trainer says: increased movement, more powerful punches, the development of a left hook that can shake a building.
Pop, pop….pop, pop, bang goes the sweet cadence as combination after combination tear into the pads. Esa shouts encouragement as O’Brien throws a right hand to his chest.
“Yea, you stopped his heart with that one!” he yells.
A step to the side, and another right hand spits out from the furious dynamo, another yell, and I have no envy for his opponent.
“You hit somebody with that and its goodnight Irene!” Esa yells through his goatee.
O’Brien’s style is electrifying— he’s got no problem taking a punch to land one, and when he takes one on the chin, it’s like pulling the cord on a 5 foot 9 inch chainsaw.
He’s also white, which in boxing is nothing but a blessing; if you’re a good fighter, you can be transformed into the next “Great White Hope” overnight. If you happen to be a great fighter, it doesn’t matter what color your skin is— the money is out there.
“You’re in boxing, you could get lucky and make millions…I mean, you could set your kids up for life if you worked hard,” Esa tells me later.
He says that his fighter has a style that will fashion an iron bond between he and his fans reminiscent of the late Arturo Gatti, anotherNew Jerseynative andAtlantic Cityfavorite known for his die-hard following.
Friday’s fight will be broadcast nationally on ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights,” so if there’s any time to create that bond, it’s now.
O’Brien wants it just the same, because if it doesn’t work out in boxing….well, in his words, “It’s gotta work out.”
“There’s no backup plan. This is Plan A, Plan B, Plan C…this is everything,” he says.
It’s not an easy road to choose—littered with empty promises, shattered careers, and the corpses of good men, it’s known as a meat grinder that will use up the weak and lay low the strong.
But Esa knows the siren song of the villainous swine, and says he laid it bare to O’Brien from the first meeting.
“I was there, I been there, I done that,” he says. “I told him, ‘Look, they’re gonna’ offer you the world, and you gotta’ make the decision: it’s either you do it the right way, or we don’t do it,’ and he says, ‘No Lou, I promise I’ll listen.’”
Esa shakes his head as he relates stories about fighters from his generation who are so punch drunk that they can barely talk, or who lost everything on their journey down the rocky road.
“I won’t let that happen to (Vinny),” Esa says, shaking his head.“No matter what.”
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/122209103_Young_fighter_s_quest_for_a_lasting_legacy.html?c=y&page=1
In the back of what looks like a typical general fitness gym in Whippany sits an Olympic size boxing ring and a long row of heavy bags that sway and flutter like the ocean breakers over the rippled hardwood floor.
It’s here, among the smell of sweat and old hand wraps, that athletes are put through sweltering torture to the snapping rhythms of punches hitting leather meant to forge them into fighters.
One man here has risen a bit faster than the rest, though, and when Final Round Boxing’s pride and joy gets in the ring and goes to work, the whole gym stops and takes notice.
At 24 years old, he’s a relative newcomer to a sport where most champions train from their first steps, but as soon as he steps through the ring ropes, it becomes undeniable that the kid’s got a natural aptitude for violence; as he shadowboxes, his body hurls around like a gyroscope in a brutal ballet designed to devastate the hardiest of men.
Vinny O’Brien, lean and chiseled with slicked-back black hair, started boxing around three years ago and immediately showed his aptitude in the squared circle: a finalist in the 2008 NJ Golden Gloves tournament, he won the 141 pound title in the same tournament in 2010.
This Friday night, the East Hanover native will return to the Prudential Center in Newark for his third professional fight in the hopes of staying undefeated as he tries to turn a fledgling pro career into something bigger — much bigger.
A bell signals the end of the round, and his trainer, Lou Esa, steps between the ropes himself to work the focus mitts for the young welterweight nicknamed “The Lion.”
In another life, the mammoth 6 foot 6 inch Esa, 59, was a professional heavyweight who fought on Muhammad Ali’s undercards. With blonde hair and a huge smile, he talks with the swaggering confidence of one who’s knocked out 16 men.
He trains O’Brien every day, and calls him a “work in progress” whose maniacal attitude towards training is proving to be his finest asset.
“He’s only had eight amateur fights and two pro fights…but he works every day like it’s his last and I love that about him,” said Esa.
With every session he improves, the trainer says: increased movement, more powerful punches, the development of a left hook that can shake a building.
Pop, pop….pop, pop, bang goes the sweet cadence as combination after combination tear into the pads. Esa shouts encouragement as O’Brien throws a right hand to his chest.
“Yea, you stopped his heart with that one!” he yells.
A step to the side, and another right hand spits out from the furious dynamo, another yell, and I have no envy for his opponent.
“You hit somebody with that and its goodnight Irene!” Esa yells through his goatee.
O’Brien’s style is electrifying— he’s got no problem taking a punch to land one, and when he takes one on the chin, it’s like pulling the cord on a 5 foot 9 inch chainsaw.
He’s also white, which in boxing is nothing but a blessing; if you’re a good fighter, you can be transformed into the next “Great White Hope” overnight. If you happen to be a great fighter, it doesn’t matter what color your skin is— the money is out there.
“You’re in boxing, you could get lucky and make millions…I mean, you could set your kids up for life if you worked hard,” Esa tells me later.
He says that his fighter has a style that will fashion an iron bond between he and his fans reminiscent of the late Arturo Gatti, anotherNew Jerseynative andAtlantic Cityfavorite known for his die-hard following.
Friday’s fight will be broadcast nationally on ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights,” so if there’s any time to create that bond, it’s now.
O’Brien wants it just the same, because if it doesn’t work out in boxing….well, in his words, “It’s gotta work out.”
“There’s no backup plan. This is Plan A, Plan B, Plan C…this is everything,” he says.
It’s not an easy road to choose—littered with empty promises, shattered careers, and the corpses of good men, it’s known as a meat grinder that will use up the weak and lay low the strong.
But Esa knows the siren song of the villainous swine, and says he laid it bare to O’Brien from the first meeting.
“I was there, I been there, I done that,” he says. “I told him, ‘Look, they’re gonna’ offer you the world, and you gotta’ make the decision: it’s either you do it the right way, or we don’t do it,’ and he says, ‘No Lou, I promise I’ll listen.’”
Esa shakes his head as he relates stories about fighters from his generation who are so punch drunk that they can barely talk, or who lost everything on their journey down the rocky road.
“I won’t let that happen to (Vinny),” Esa says, shaking his head.“No matter what.”
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/122209103_Young_fighter_s_quest_for_a_lasting_legacy.html?c=y&page=1
Monday, January 17, 2011
Pequannock resident preparing to take on Golden Gloves tournament
Sunday, January 16, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
Most early mornings start the same for Mike DeLade Jr. since he began boxing: a 5 a.m. rising followed by a 45-minute run that takes him through the streets of Pequannock before most of the people have stirred from slumber.
The Benjamin Place resident then works during the day doing construction and contracting work before driving down to Whippany's Final Round Boxing gym.
There, DeLade finishes off his day by lacing on the gloves and lighting up the bags in somber preparation for February's NJ Golden Gloves tournament, which has pitted the best amateur fighters against each other every year since 1923.
It's been a long road to the boxing gym for the 23-year-old DeLade, who graduated from Pequannock Township High School in 2005 and has worked a variety of blue-collar jobs since, ranging from air conditioning and heating, to masonry and snow plowing.
The grind of the blue-collar world led to boredom and sometimes trouble for DeLade, who's had a few "scuffles" on a few nights that didn't end early enough.
"I had always wanted to fight, but I always seemed to like fighting in bars more," he said with a laugh.
He began playing flag football to break the monotony, but that wasn't enough, and one sport continued to draw him in: boxing.
"My uncles always liked watching boxing, and after watching the fights, I wanted to learn the art of it," he said, noting that a cousin of his had also been a Golden Gloves fighter.
Although he didn't necessarily receive support from his mother ("She said, 'I don't want your face to get busted up.'") or his friends ("They said, 'People train their whole lives for that tournament.'"), he pushed on and eventually found a home at Final Round Boxing.
"I told them that even if I don't (win), at least I can say that I tried," he said. "And my father is psyched about it too. He thinks I could do good in there."
So, for the past two months, DeLade has been training under the watchful eye of Final Round's boxing coach, former heavyweight fighter Lou Esa of Wayne.
"When I joined, Lou asked if I wanted to fight amateur or not, so we did a couple sessions to see if I was good enough," DeLade said.
After those sessions, Esa agreed to train him for the tournament.
"He said I hit hard and that all the other things will come together," he said.
Esa, 59, is a giant of a man with bear paws for hands who once fought on Muhammad Ali's undercards during his pro career. He's not one to mince words, but said that the kid's getting better, and quickly.
"He's used to street fighting and all, so he's not afraid to get hit, but when I get him sparring more I'll be able to better judge (his ability)," Esa said. "But the way things are going now, I think he'll breeze right through the (Golden) Gloves."
Esa joked that DeLade still has the "white man's disease"— a term he coined for having little rhythm and slow feet (similar to "Rocky").
However, one thing the 6-foot-1, 225-pound DeLade has that makes Esa grin is a big right hand that he thinks could devastate opponents.
"That right hand," Esa said, "is going to put somebody on Queer Street if he hits 'em with it."
On top of his natural power, DeLade has exhibited a ceaseless work ethic that Esa admires.
"He goes right into his workout, he doesn't play, and that impresses the hell out of me," he said. "He wants this so bad."
DeLade said that he can't wait to get in the ring for what would be his first amateur fights when the Golden Gloves tournament starts in the first week of February.
"(Boxing) isn't a team thing. I played football my whole life, but this, the whole weight is on you. It's between you and the other fighter," he said. "It's 'Let's see what you got, let's see how much you want it.'"
An hour's worth of running every morning, and later on, after laboring all day, it's another hour or two of training a variety of skill work, from shadowboxing and jumping rope to speed and heavy bag work, all with one goal: to be able to hurt another man so badly that he can't continue fighting.
At the start, it can be discouraging as fighters engage muscles they've never used before and find out that it's not as easy as it looks.
"It's pretty hard, especially in the beginning," DeLade said. "The first time I hit a speed bag, I thought, 'I'm never gonna be able to get this.'
"It takes a while, and you've got to do little things like shadowbox at home in front of a mirror, and when you're getting tired, you have to go right through it," he said.
The practice, however, is paying off in a big way.
"The other day he hit the bag with a 1-2-1-2," said Esa, "And that thing went flying… The whole gym noticed. I told (DeLade) that that's what I want. He's been doing fantastic."
Coincidentally, working the heavy bag happens to be DeLade's favorite hobby.
"I get some frustration out, and if you do the right combo or hit it right, you can tell right away," he said.
The close relationship between trainer and fighter is already beginning to form even though they haven't been working together long, and DeLade trusts Esa's every word.
"He knows everything about boxing and he tells it how it is. He doesn't sugarcoat things," DeLade said. "Whatever Lou says, I do."
With the tournament looming ever closer, the training becomes more and more crucial for what will be the first test of DeLade's skills in the squared circle.
"I think my chances are really good since I'm training hard, and I'm really serious about it… (Winning) it would probably be the biggest accomplishment of my life," he said. "I've got the conditioning and I've got the confidence. I can't wait."
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
The Benjamin Place resident then works during the day doing construction and contracting work before driving down to Whippany's Final Round Boxing gym.
There, DeLade finishes off his day by lacing on the gloves and lighting up the bags in somber preparation for February's NJ Golden Gloves tournament, which has pitted the best amateur fighters against each other every year since 1923.
It's been a long road to the boxing gym for the 23-year-old DeLade, who graduated from Pequannock Township High School in 2005 and has worked a variety of blue-collar jobs since, ranging from air conditioning and heating, to masonry and snow plowing.
The grind of the blue-collar world led to boredom and sometimes trouble for DeLade, who's had a few "scuffles" on a few nights that didn't end early enough.
"I had always wanted to fight, but I always seemed to like fighting in bars more," he said with a laugh.
He began playing flag football to break the monotony, but that wasn't enough, and one sport continued to draw him in: boxing.
"My uncles always liked watching boxing, and after watching the fights, I wanted to learn the art of it," he said, noting that a cousin of his had also been a Golden Gloves fighter.
Although he didn't necessarily receive support from his mother ("She said, 'I don't want your face to get busted up.'") or his friends ("They said, 'People train their whole lives for that tournament.'"), he pushed on and eventually found a home at Final Round Boxing.
"I told them that even if I don't (win), at least I can say that I tried," he said. "And my father is psyched about it too. He thinks I could do good in there."
So, for the past two months, DeLade has been training under the watchful eye of Final Round's boxing coach, former heavyweight fighter Lou Esa of Wayne.
"When I joined, Lou asked if I wanted to fight amateur or not, so we did a couple sessions to see if I was good enough," DeLade said.
After those sessions, Esa agreed to train him for the tournament.
"He said I hit hard and that all the other things will come together," he said.
Esa, 59, is a giant of a man with bear paws for hands who once fought on Muhammad Ali's undercards during his pro career. He's not one to mince words, but said that the kid's getting better, and quickly.
"He's used to street fighting and all, so he's not afraid to get hit, but when I get him sparring more I'll be able to better judge (his ability)," Esa said. "But the way things are going now, I think he'll breeze right through the (Golden) Gloves."
Esa joked that DeLade still has the "white man's disease"— a term he coined for having little rhythm and slow feet (similar to "Rocky").
However, one thing the 6-foot-1, 225-pound DeLade has that makes Esa grin is a big right hand that he thinks could devastate opponents.
"That right hand," Esa said, "is going to put somebody on Queer Street if he hits 'em with it."
On top of his natural power, DeLade has exhibited a ceaseless work ethic that Esa admires.
"He goes right into his workout, he doesn't play, and that impresses the hell out of me," he said. "He wants this so bad."
DeLade said that he can't wait to get in the ring for what would be his first amateur fights when the Golden Gloves tournament starts in the first week of February.
"(Boxing) isn't a team thing. I played football my whole life, but this, the whole weight is on you. It's between you and the other fighter," he said. "It's 'Let's see what you got, let's see how much you want it.'"
Grueling workouts… daily
Those who have boxed might attest to the punishing nature of the sport's training.An hour's worth of running every morning, and later on, after laboring all day, it's another hour or two of training a variety of skill work, from shadowboxing and jumping rope to speed and heavy bag work, all with one goal: to be able to hurt another man so badly that he can't continue fighting.
At the start, it can be discouraging as fighters engage muscles they've never used before and find out that it's not as easy as it looks.
"It's pretty hard, especially in the beginning," DeLade said. "The first time I hit a speed bag, I thought, 'I'm never gonna be able to get this.'
"It takes a while, and you've got to do little things like shadowbox at home in front of a mirror, and when you're getting tired, you have to go right through it," he said.
The practice, however, is paying off in a big way.
"The other day he hit the bag with a 1-2-1-2," said Esa, "And that thing went flying… The whole gym noticed. I told (DeLade) that that's what I want. He's been doing fantastic."
Coincidentally, working the heavy bag happens to be DeLade's favorite hobby.
"I get some frustration out, and if you do the right combo or hit it right, you can tell right away," he said.
The close relationship between trainer and fighter is already beginning to form even though they haven't been working together long, and DeLade trusts Esa's every word.
"He knows everything about boxing and he tells it how it is. He doesn't sugarcoat things," DeLade said. "Whatever Lou says, I do."
With the tournament looming ever closer, the training becomes more and more crucial for what will be the first test of DeLade's skills in the squared circle.
"I think my chances are really good since I'm training hard, and I'm really serious about it… (Winning) it would probably be the biggest accomplishment of my life," he said. "I've got the conditioning and I've got the confidence. I can't wait."
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
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