Golden Gloves

He was a novice boxer.

He came out of the Golden Gloves and he fought in the novice class.

And...

You know, he wasn't...

This was when Gleason's used to be on 30th and 8th, between 7th and 8th, and they moved to Brooklyn, to Front Street in Brooklyn.

And I remember Seamus McDonough there, but, you know, he was, I thought he was a decent amateur fighter, you know, but he was a novice fighter.

He was, you know, and then he got, then he went pro, but he wasn't really, they wanted to win the Golden Gloves.

They knew he wouldn't have won in the open class, but they got the title anyways.

I got involved in this documentary back during COVID.

A dear friend of mine, Francesco Saviano, who's the director, he had been following three young fighters who were pursuing their dreams all Golden Gloves champions over the course of their careers the fight game is challenging and tricky and he put together this footage of their wins their losses and all the adversity that comes with it and I took a look at it and I said wow this is incredibly inspiring and i i wanted to help shape the story with francesco so we put our heads together kept the cameras rolling until about 2024 finished up the edit last year and now have a movie and i'm really proud of it it felt like boxing's a metaphor for life this is that in a petri dish you know you braid three people's stories together you start to see things that like wow like there are other things that work there are things that like we can't quite explain or even how people deal with adversity and how they overcome adversity or sometimes not.

It just feels like while boxing is at the center of it, I think there's something deeper.

It's more universal.

Zab and I go way back, Gleason's gym.

I'm talking about we were young, young as young as, so I watched the whole journey before the Golden Gloves, before when Zab used to beat people up in the gym and the whole gym was stopped just to crowd around and watch him spar.

So we knew greatness was destined for you.

But Zab, there's so much going on in the welterweight division that you were undisputed in.

yeah

Were you fighting the Golden Gloves? Were you wearing the Golden Gloves? Or did you fight in the Golden Gloves the day of her funeral? How did that situation even...

How were you able to even put that into play?

Man, just trying to be tough.

Leave Roger, man.

I mean, like I said, there's one thing about them guys, man.

I ended up – I won the Golden Gloves, you know what I mean, twice.

And I remember the last one that I won, I fought another qualifier.