Sheridan - A Fighters Heart: One mans journey through the world of fighting

Sam Sheridan joined the US Merchant Marines after high school and then attended Harvard College, from where he graduated in 1998. He has written for Mens Journal and Newsweek. This is his first book.

Virgil Hunter and Andre Ward, Oakland, March 2005.

Kings Gym, Oakland

It takes constant effort to keep the slippery, naked, near-formless fact of hitting swaddled in layers of sense and form. Because hitting wants to shake off all encumbering import and just be hitting, because boxing incompletely frames elemental chaos, the capacity of the fights to mean is rivaled by their incapacity to mean anything at all.

Carlo Rotella, Cut Time

I drove cross-country to Oakland in the spring. I was going to see Virgil Hunter and Andre Ward. Andre had won a gold medal at the Olympics in Athens and was 30 as a pro.

My shoulder was feeling better. The endless pulling on rubber bands seemed to have had some effect. I had talked Virgil into taking me on as a student. Just imagine Im a cruiserweight prospect, I said to him. He laughed. Virgil would never be able to pretend I was anything other than what I was. Its part of what made him a great trainer. I told him I wanted an amateur fighthaving a fight focuses the training and clarifies the mind; it gives you a sense of urgency that helps you learn. I wanted a different kind of relationship with a teacher, more than Id had in Rio or even Iowa. I wanted the one-on-one attention. If I was going to fight bare-fisted in Myanmar or MMA again anywhere, I better do it right. If my true love was hitting and getting hit, I figured I should have the best instruction available, at least for a while. And I was fascinated by Andres story, the life of a red-hot young prospect with all the advantages, being groomed for greatness. Finally, I thought it would be good for my understanding to take a look into the big-time world of professional boxing, from the inside.

The amount of literary material on boxing is staggering. World-class writers have fallen in love with the sweet science, from Hemingway and Mailer to Joyce Carol Oates; far, far better writers than I have addressed the issue. In general, they fall into all kinds of hyperbole, all kinds of difficult and complicated constructions and emphatic descriptions, in attempts to describe the visceral. Boxing writing often veers from the sublime to the ridiculous.

So I was going to get some one-on-one attention with a world-class trainer and fight an amateur fight. It almost seemed a step backward, to fight an amateur fight at this point (four two-minute rounds, headgearare you kidding me?), but the fight was just an excuse to train hard. And I wanted to see Andre in depth, close up. People didnt realize that although Andre had won gold at light-heavyweight, 175 pounds, hed fought most of those fights weighing under 170 pounds. He beat a European champion and a huge (six-five) Russian world champion and gave up seven pounds. The critics were sniping at him for turning pro at middleweight (Didnt he have the power for light-heavy?), or 160but he had never been a proper light-heavyweight.

I arrived in Oakland without a place to stay, and through a friend of a friend ended up crashing on the floor of an unfurnished apartment in East Oakland. The neighborhood was bad, in the process of gentrifying but not there yet. Rough open streets, old factories, and rundown buildings: the West Coast urban wasteland.

The next morning I was up to meet Virgil in the pearly gray dawn, and as I headed toward my car, I could see a rats nest of papers and litter on the front seat. I walked slowly around the car in the warm morning light, with the ocean coloring the sky. One of the rear triangular windows had been neatly mashed inthe rock that had been used as a tool was still by the rear tireall the doors had been unlocked, and the trunk had been popped. For some reason, I had thought things would be safe in the trunk. Of course, the trunk only keeps things safe from prying eyes; once youre in the car, you just pop the trunk with that little latch on the floor. All my sparring and workout gear, plus a backpack filled with street clothes, was gone. Ah, well, at least Id brought my camera and laptop inside. Who needs street clothes anyway?

I drove through the morning calm to Coffee with a Beat, the coffee shop that Virgil called his office, on the park next to Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland. The sun came up warm, but it was cold in the shade, and through the trees I could see the glimmer of the lake. I walked up and saw Virgil, looking the same, regal and smiling. We shook hands warmly; he seemed genuinely happy to see me. He was instantly recognizable, tall, broad-shouldered, and lean, with his head shaved bald and a black mustache, an Everlast ball cap, and sunglasses. He dressed in trainer chic, crisp athletic gear that was clean and sharp. When his sunglasses were off, you could see his eyes were intense, probing; he wore the glasses almost like a poker player does, to help him conceal his thoughts and where his eyes were, so you couldnt read him.

We drank coffee and talked, moving one of the little outdoor tables into the sun. We caught up. I asked after Andre, and Virgil mentioned the cage-fighting article, which had been published in Mens Journal with maximum gore. I hate to see you like that, he said lightly, and I laughed, because the editors had gone with pictures that made it look as bad as possible, despite my protestations and the photographers wishes. I told him the whole story, about the weight mix-up and everything.

He shook his head. You arent fighting to take punishment, he said. A true fighter learns how to say no if the fight is unfair. You dont have to fight; its not a million-dollar title shot on the line.

He chuckled to himself quietly, mulling over his words. He looked at me through his sunglasses and said, smiling, Its prizefighting, not pride-fighting.

We talked about what I wanted to accomplish, and what he was doing with Andre and Antonio Johnson, a fighter who had recently come to him. Antonio was another kid with a gigantic amateur background, and he could have made the Olympic team but didnt make weighta sign that his discipline was a mess.

We made plans to meet up later at Kings Boxing Gym, and as we stood up, Virgil said in his dry voice, Its all about figuring out who you are. Its something you hear again and again in boxing: Boxing is about knowing your identity. If you are a boxer, someone with skill and technical virtuosity but perhaps without power, then box; use your science, move and hit and defend. If you are a puncher, with power to hurt with just one punch, then get yourself in a position to let your hands go and punch. Let your hands go is the refrain everywhere for Start throwing punches. Your hands are trained to punch in combinations, just let them go and do what they want. Trainers and bystanders will implore fighters who seem oddly frozen, who could win the fight if they would only land a few combinations. Of course, everything is different for the man in the ring.

I drove back through Oakland, hot and dusty with those wide, hard-scrabble streets. East Oakland was a picture of neglect and emptinessthough here and there old warehouses were being turned into fancy apartments because it was an easy commute to San Francisco, just a few blocks from the Bay Bridge. The sun beat down through a perfect blue sky, and the ocean was a presence I could feel and know, but not see or hear.