![]() The key to this communion is leaving all other identity classifications, save that of a fighter, at the gym door. It’s a rare mentality but a powerful one that can unite across race, age, ability, and gender in the dank, sweat-laced air of a gym. Which is maybe why so many who have suffered rejection in other areas of their life find solace in the bag work and sparring, where respect is earned through hard, physical workouts, discipline, and through the courage it takes to step up and fight. In a sport that relies on the underclass for future growth, much like the church, it pays not to be picky. Instead of college scholarships and pre-Olympic programs, the big talents have, more often than not, been drawn from society’s most deprived, where trauma and lack of opportunity bake in a capacity to persist through pain.Ĭonsequently, one of the unwritten rules of the boxing gym - the kind of joint where floorboards come stained in sweat and where communication can be monosyllabic - is that everyone is welcome. The time has come to rock & roll.īOXING HAS ALWAYS been a sport for the outcast. Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” plays on the dressing-room speakers as they walk from the tent through the black-curtained drapes to the lights and the fenced-off walkway that leads to the ring. Valenzuela pats him on the shoulder and smiles. “Hey,” Reiss says before he leaves, “good luck out there, man.”Īs his gloves are laced, Manuel’s expression hardens. Referee Jack Reiss visits the tent to brief him on the rules of engagement in the ring and to check Manuel’s groin protector. Next, Manuel puts on his fight gear: black silk shorts adorned with an orange trim designed by a local African boutique, in honor of ancestors on his father’s side. Each bind covers another inked letter from the words “bash back.” Manuel’s eyes follow Valenzuela as the coach starts to wind the cotton wraps over his tattooed knuckles. Which is why tonight is so important, and why composure now is so key. Most boxing careers demand blood and bravura in equal measure, but in Manuel’s case, his identity as a fighter has required him to overcome prejudice, too. Any chance I get is an opportunity for me to do what I love.” What can I say? I just wanna fight, and I don’t have much longer in this sport. But as a pro with just two fights in 10 years, Manuel was in no mind to complain: “I was like, honestly, fuck it. Thirty-year-old lightweight Alexander Gutierrez confirmed his participation just two days before the weigh-in - an unsettling 11th-hour call that denied Manuel the usual benefit of being able to study his opponent as part of his preparation, and one that left Gutierrez sweating off pounds at short notice to make weight. Tonight will be yet another step down this uncharted and challenging path. When he did, in March of this year, a second victory followed: a technical knockout against Hieu Huynh. The win of a trans fighter over a cisgender man proved so controversial that it took five years of hustle, knock backs, and determination for Manuel to book his follow-up. In his first pro fight after his transition, in 2018, Manuel made history by defeating Hugo Aguilar in a unanimous-decision points victory. That’s because Manuel is a rare talent of the sport: a five-time women’s national amateur champion and former female Olympic trialist, whose transition in 2013 led him to become the first trans man to fight professionally on American soil. He knows that the usual high-stakes danger of boxing will be coupled with historical stakes tonight. Physically, the 38-year-old is in great shape - his lean, tattooed torso of super-featherweight brawn hitting the scales on the 130-pound mark at the weigh-in the day before.Īll that Manuel’s sagacious head coach Victor Valenzuela can do now is fine-tune his fighter’s composure. It’s been eight weeks of running drills, eating right, and heavy sparring for Manuel to be ripped and ready for this, his third professional bout, and potentially toughest yet. But neither seem to bother the glazed-eyed boxer as he rubs his beard. Inside the thin tent walls, he can hear the hubbub of spectators already seated in the arena and the bass-y bursts of rap intermittently being used to warm up the PA system. He’s in the back corner of the white-tarpaulined gazebo as he waits to be called to the ring of the 3,000-seater events center here in Indio, California. Patricio Manuel sits silently backstage at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino.
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