The best site I know of to see vintage footage of Beltway and internationally-known amateur boxers is on the website DC Amateur Boxing at www.dcboxing.blogspot.com.
Right now, the website is showing bouts from the 2001 and 2002 Platinum Gloves Tournament that was held at the old Washington Convention Center. There are some great bouts featuring boxers who are either top-flight amateurs or young pros today.
One bout in particular was a 2001 bout between Gary Russell, Jr. and Sadam Ali in the 12/13 age bracket and the 80-pound division.
Seven years later, Russell and Ali would be teammates on the 2008 United States Olympic Team.
I had the honor of calling the action on most of these videos with "The Fight Doctor" Jerome Spears and former IBF Junior Middleweight champion Vincent "The Ambassador" Pettway doing the color commentary.
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3 comments:
DC AMATEUR BOXING is one of the best things to happen for amateur boxing. Not only is it fun to look back in time at how our current boxers looked; he also saves us money. He charges nothing! That $25.00 per VCR tape was getting out of hand. You can see boxers from all parts of the USA and a few from other countries.
Ofcourse, you will have a few haters. Negative comments and jealous ones too. Remember, the person took quite a bit of his time to put this site together, not to mention the time it takes to upgrade when he can. He gets paid nothing for this. In fact, he puts his own money out.
Keep up the good work! You are doing an excellent job.
I agree wholeheartedly! DC Amateur Boxing does a wonderful job!
The Platinum Gloves footage is bringing back a whole lot of memories.
I'm glad that people are enjoying the site. The positive feedback that I get is what keeps me doing it. I wanted to just give a little background on why I spend hrs getting and uploading the videos that you see on the site. I've only been directly involved in the sport of amateur boxing for about 5 years now and after seeing first hand the skill level of the boxers in this area, I couldn't figure out why I never knew that boxing at this level was right in my own backyard. Well, it didn't take long before I realized that although the boxing community is a very tight knit community, it is isolated. When I would attend local shows, I would see only boxers, coaches and parents at the shows. The general public is widely unaware of the sport. But it's a great sport that does more for its participants than any other sport. Contrary to popular belief, boxing does a lot to develop character and promote growth of the person not just the boxer. We all know that the sport of boxing has been losing popularity as MMA/ UFC grows and (UFC recently outsold professional wrestling during the year - breaking the all-time annual PPV record with $226 million in sales) amateur boxing is nonexistent on network television. The Olympic Games in Beijing didn't help the cause either with all the controversy and chaos.
Anyhow, I love the sport of amateur boxing and saw an opportunity for me to help promote it and help SHOW people why they should too. I started with a few videos online so that family and friends of boxers could see the bouts when they were unable to attend the shows. The feedback was great, so I opened it up. As it exists today, the websites' function, as I see it, is to:
1. Promote the sport of amateur boxing by showcasing some of our up and coming boxers in the DC area and around the country.
2. Allow friends and families of boxers, who aren't able to attend a show, to watch boxers in action. I get emails from people all over the world who see their family members, friends and teammates boxing on the site and send in appreciation.
3. Demonstrate to young boxers how much room for improvement and growth there is in the sport if they put in the time. Watching a current world champion or Olympian in action as a junior boxer shows that boxers aren't always born, but they are developed. Parents especially can see that they shouldn't expect their son or daughter to be Floyd Mayweather or Laila Ali after 4 weeks in the gym.
4. Help boxing fans relive history by showing top professionals when they were amateurs.
Simple as that. One of the new things that I am doing now is taking submissions of video for the site. If anyone has amateur video that they would like showcased on the site, they can visit the homepage and send questions to the email listed.
With anything that you do, there will be detractors just like there are on this blog. That's the beauty of the internet and having free speech. People can say whatever they want and are entitled to their own opinion. I will never censor any posts, but I do remove any posts with cursing and/or racists comments because the site is open to the public. Other than that, you can say what you want. But, as long as I keep getting positive feedback, I'll keep the site going.
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