The Syracuse University Boxing Club is revitalizing a long-lost tradition by hosting the first fight on its home turf since 1957.

The club will host College Boxing Fight Night at 6 p.m. on Saturday in the Women’s Building. Tickets are $8 for students and $10 for general admission. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to at-risk youth.

The fight night is going to be a special event, said Tony Chao, captain of the club and a junior illustration major. He said it is great that students and the local community will finally be able to watch the SU Boxing Club compete, and the boxers will see all of their hard work and training pay off.

Ten students from the club will be fighting on Saturday, eight of whom are 0-0 for the year. Tomas Smith, vice captain of the club and a sophomore chemistry major, said this is the first time many of the boxers will be fighting competitively.

“Even though a lot of the guys are still learning and still pretty new, I feel like they have a lot of heart, and that is something you’ve got to be born with,” Smith said. “You can teach technique and everything, but heart is just to go in there and fight and not give up, and that is what our guys can do.”

At the event, the team will compete against boxers from the University of Maryland, several Canadian teams and some local Syracuse gyms.

“We are breaking the cleavage between college boxing and inner-city boxing and allowing community integration,” said Joe Stray, head coach of the club and a senior sociology major.

Stray, the 2012 New York state boxing champion, collaborated with Ray Rinaldi, director of both the North and West Area Athletic Education Centers in Syracuse and Stray’s former coach, to organize the event. Rinaldi said college boxing is coming back to schools across the country, which is a good thing because it allows kids who are attracted to fighting to do it in a safe environment.

Boxing was traditionally popular among East Coast universities, but fell out of the spotlight, said Geghard Arakelian, a first-year student in the Composition and Cultural Rhetoric Doctoral Program.

“A lot of people would like to think of the College Boxing Fight Night as simply an event put together by the boxing club on campus,” said Arakelian. “However, it’s more than that. It’s the making of SU history.”

The boxing club plays a large role in the lives of these students. Arakelian said the club does not just teach its members to throw punches, but it also gives them a place within the SU community.

Arakelian said because they are fighting at the amateur level, the boxers don’t know whom they are fighting until the day of weigh-ins.

“That adds to the level of anticipation and excitement because you really have no idea who you are going to be going up against,” he said. “So, competition isn’t really so much between you and this person.  It really comes back to you and the competition with yourself.”

After Saturday, the club hopes to host another home show on the Quad during the spring semester and compete again in April at the championship in Miami.

Published on November 14, 2013 at 1:27 am

Contact Kate: kacapoda@syr.edu