A fighting chance

It was McConnell who bloodied his nose.

The two friends, both 27, had just left the frayed canvas ring inside Allston's Boston Boxing & Fitness, where they competed for the first time. Each fighter got the better of the other at some point in the match; both came out of the ring exhausted.

"Six minutes in the ring feels like 10 hours outside," McConnell said.

The Gillard-McConnell bout was the first of 13 amateur fights held that night before a packed house at the Boston Boxing gym on Rugg Road. As part of a new series, Friday Night Fights, the event was designed to give the gym's boxers some competitive practice in advance of the New England Golden Gloves, the region's top amateur competition, which begins Jan. 9.

Boxing has lost cultural cachet to mixed martial arts and ultimate fighting, and the sport is struggling to assert its relevance, so amateur competitions such as Boston Boxing's Friday Night Fights are few and far between.

When Gillard and McConnell fought Dec. 12, nearly 200 people had paid $10 at the door to pile into the small facility. Every folding chair was filled, and dozens of people stood on the gym's green industrial carpet, drinking beer from plastic cups. Condensation created by the heat of fighters and the crowd trickled down the large front window as the boxers threw their punches and nervous fighters warmed up on a raised platform set back from the ring.

Like most of the people in the gym, Brett Hinckley knew someone fighting that night. Hinckley and two friends sat ringside, only three or four feet from the ropes, waiting to cheer for Phil Riffe, who was fighting for Newton's Nonantum Boxing Club.

In the 10th bout, Riffe dispatched his opponent in the first round.

"Phil Riffe brings the noise," Hinckley said with glee. "Quote that."

Everyone at the Friday Night Fights seemed to know someone, and Ed LaVache knew everyone.

LaVache, 37, started boxing in 1990 while he was in college. He took his first lessons at Boston Boxing, and two years ago he and business partner Kenny Biddy bought the gym, which has existed in one form or another for more than two decades. They run it in the tradition of community boxing gyms. They don't advertise, although they have a website (www.bostonboxing.com). They charge by the month and when times are tight, they've been known to let people slide for a while. Children who join the gym as part of the Fit Students for Life program work out for free.

Because boxing has lost popularity as a sport in the last few decades, many of Boston Boxing's 200 or so fighters entered the gym knowing little about the fistic arts. But once they join, they learn quickly. There's not a lot of dressing up and socializing here, LaVache said. It's all business.

Many of the gym's fighters develop professional ambitions after a few months. "They all wanna be De La Hoya or Mayweather," LaVache said. "But I ask 'em: Do you wanna be that guy that's everyone's first win?"

The Friday Night Fights series was designed to give Boston Boxing's charges a safe outlet. They declare no winners or losers, and the fights aren't recorded on the fighters' records, so they're unusually civilized, though the matches on Dec. 12 had a few brutal moments.

Two relatively unequal fights were stopped in the first round before the weaker of the two boxers could get too badly hurt. In one of the more awe-inspiring moments of the evening, Hector Hernandez felled his opponent with a single blow to the forehead that landed him on the canvas with a thud.

The audience cheered loudly all night, but some matches emerged as favorites. In the third fight of the evening, Jen Blasi, one of Boston Boxing's approximately 100 female fighters, batted her opponent around the ring, pattering her with three- and four-punch combinations. Whether she was delivering punches or absorbing them, Blasi stayed calm in the ring, drawing roars from the crowd.

Blasi, 38, a licensed social worker, is taking time away from her career to raise her three young children. Lonna Carter, a friend in the audience that night, described Blasi's transition to pugilist as "going from kissing boo-boos to making boo-boos."

To stay fighting fit, Blasi trains five days a week, and she credits fighting with giving her confidence she never had before.

"Sometimes I fight twenty-somethings and I beat them up, and it feels really good."

Colin Asher can be reached at Colin.Asher@gmail.com.