Every story needs a starting point and this one is mine. I started boxing in 1981, started training people in 1991 and started saving people in 2001. I didn't run into burning buildings or pull people out of them. On September 11, 2001 I stood on the corner of Fulton and Church and watched a plane hit the second tower. The gym at that time was a few blocks away and I called my brother to tell him I didn't know if we were going to make it out. Fortunately we did. Others were not so fortunate. The night before I trained a 24 year old girl who worked in the Trade Center and was trying out boxing for the first time. She loved it and would be back the next day. Twelve hours later she was dead. Whatever illusions I had about life being fair died that day too. The game is rigged, we're all going to die one day. But today is not that day.
Boxing is a sport but it's also a philosophy, a religion and a tribe. We were created equal but we weren't born that way. Boxing levels the playing field. It's the poor man's opera.
There's something that happens to people when they box that's very subtle and yet very profound. It changes who you are - your ego, into who you always were - your identity. You were always a fighter. We just show you how. This is my shrine to boxing, not as a sport but as a vocation. I don't think people choose boxing as a career as much as it chooses them. Give me your poor and huddled masses and I'll make fighters out of them. The story of boxing is the story of America. If you want to live in the land of the free you have to make this the home of the brave. Boxing supplies the tools.