Northeast Ohio Celebrated ‘Juneteenth’ with Boxing

On Saturday, June 20, a jubilant crowd assembled at Nimisilla Park in Canton, Ohio, for an afternoon of free, open-air amateur boxing. The show was a featured part of Canton’s Juneteenth festival, a family-friendly event that also included barbecue, bounce houses, a bike giveaway, deejayed music, and a live drum corps performance.

“Honestly, I didn’t realize free community boxing shows had become so rare,” says Markees Watkins, owner, operator, and lead trainer of United Boxing Club, Inc., the nonprofit gym in Canton, Ohio that sponsored the show. “We used to see them more often, especially around Cleveland, but now that I think about it, it’s been a while.”

This is the United Boxing Club’s fifth show in Canton. They have held annual shows at the Canton Memorial Civic Center, named “The Brawl.” Reflecting the spirit of Juneteenth—the national holiday marking the end of slavery—the June 20 show was named “Fist of Freedom.”

“What’s interesting about Fist of Freedom is that we didn’t have a major sponsor,” explains Watkins. “What we did have was a community full of people willing to donate, volunteer, and support the vision. That’s what made this event possible.”

Five amateur bouts comprised the afternoon card. Christian Westfall vs. Malikye Davidson; Lilliana Carr vs. Na’ilah Crawford; Hakeem Watkins II vs. Rocco La Ricia; Luis Otero vs. Lucas Boyd; and Devon Williams vs. Noel Sanchez.

The fighters were well-matched, and the bouts were all competitive and well-fought. The core audience of the family and friends was augmented by a significant number of casual festive-goers. Their energy upon seeing what was, for many, perhaps, their first live fight was electric and infectious. People clapped, cheered, and exclaimed with a mixture of wonder, awe, and worry after every jab, hook, and slip.

The Juneteenth festival spirit provided a fitting complement to the fight-night energy of the Fist of Freedom card. Watkins was eager for the holiday event to showcase the next generation of amateur fighters in northeast Ohio, with many of the participants still in their teens.

“You’re seeing the future of boxing and a community coming together around something positive,” he said.

Boxing outdoors may not be so common anymore, but it is far from unpleasant. The forecast threatened rain, but the sunshine held strong. Nimisilla Park provided a beautiful setting for the day-long event. A cool breeze blew ringside, occasionally carrying the scent of barbecue and the sound of children playing. Century-old brick paths wind their way beneath a canopy of equally old White Oak and Beech trees.

I spoke with Luis Otero, a seventeen-year-old boxer fighting out of Legacy Youth Boxing Club of Lorain, OH, after his victory. “I never fought outside before,” he said. “But I like it. You get a better feel for the environment.”

Located adjacent to The O’Jays Parkway, named for the popular R&B group from Canton whose hits include “Backstabbers” and “Love Train,” the park also boasts signs describing its diverse historic uses, which include having once housed a small zoo and serving as the site of many speeches. One such speech led to the arrest of Socialist speaker Eugene Debs in 1918. He went on to run for president from his prison cell, garnering over a million votes on the Socialist Party ticket.

Canton’s multi-purpose park can now add “boxing venue” to that list of diverse uses.

Events like Fist of Freedom bring boxing out beyond the gym walls and into the community. In an era of ever-increasing pay-per-views and specialty apps, it will no doubt be this kind of grassroots community involvement that keeps the sport alive.

The eyes of the broader boxing community will be falling on northeast Ohio later this summer as Cleveland-born Abdullah Mason makes his homecoming title defense on July 4. After that, the USA Boxing National Open comes to Cleveland in September. Many are hoping this national attention will shine a light on a thriving local scene, one sustained by perseverance, personality, and community.

“What I’d like to see over the next five years is more unity,” says Markees Watkins. “We all want the same thing—to see boxing grow and to help athletes succeed. I think the stronger we work together as gyms, coaches, officials, and promoters, the stronger the sport becomes.”

Andrew Rihn

Andrew Rihn is the author of Revelation: An Apocalypse if Fifty-Eight Fights, a book of prose poems about Mike Tyson. He is a regular contributor to a number of boxing website, and an assistant editor at Pithead Chapel. Born in Ohio, he now lives in Tyngsboro, MA.

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