Golden Gloves

Sometimes you've gotta break the usual routine. So after grabbing dinner with Vince Pontarelli at my favorite Mexican joint, Fernando's (many a blurry evening has started with one of their Hornitos Margaritas), we headed to St. Andrew's gymnasium, for the state finals of the Golden Gloves ameteur boxing competition. We hooked up with Tony, one of the security guards who works at WMS -- he's the one who'd told us about the fights in the first place. We buy our general admission tickets, pick up a couple of beer tickets, find a spot on the bleachers, and we are ready for some pugilistic mayhem!

Actually, the fights are all very well supervised -- as they keep reminding us, "safety first". The boxers wear protective headgear, and a bout only last 3 rounds or less, if the ref determines that a fighter has sustained even the most minor injury. There are two women in spandex "Bud Light" dresses and high heels, who take turns parading around the ring between rounds. Altogether, there were 10 fights -- 3 of them were between women. I lost 20 bucks to Vince in the second match, and he refused to let me try to win my money back after that. There are some good match-ups, and some not-so-good ones, but I had to admire the guts it took for any of those fighters to get in the ring in the first place!