Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, on assignment for the Winooski News
WINOOSKI — Mike Tyson fought 15 of his first 18 pro fights in a ring specially commissioned for him by Bob Miller — legendary boxing coach, cutman and manager. De-rusted, refurbished and with a fresh coat of paint, that ring is now in Winooski, where the fighters at Combat Fitness mirror Tyson’s work ethic in their training.
From the slap of gloves against heavy bags to the shuffle of opponents’ feet gauging distance on the mat, the gym comes to life every day. And as students learn to handle themselves in the ring, the gym’s coaches hope to give them the skills to handle life, too.
“Martial arts gives you tough love,” said head coach Anthony Bambara. “You’re going to learn this lesson: Whether you succeed or whether you fail, you can’t lie when you’re fighting. If you’re brave and you’re strong, and if you did all the work you’re supposed to, people will see that.”
Training martial arts can be unnerving. You strap on your gloves, bite down on your mouthpiece and maybe feel a cold sweat beading on the back of your neck — the sudden realization that someone’s about to punch you in the face setting in. But whether you have 20 minutes or 20 years of experience, those pre-spar butterflies flutter inside every fighter.
Experienced gymgoers can use that bond to learn from the “white belt mentality,” as Bambara put it — feeding off newcomers’ eagerness to learn from fresh eyes.
“Whether you’re a 7-year-old kid or a 60-year-old-kid, whether you’re here for fitness, or community, or they want to be world champion, if you walk through that door, you’re a fighter first and I’m going to treat you as such,” Bambara said.
Combat Fitness has been hosting the Green Mountain Gloves boxing event since 2021, calling in pro and amateur fighters from Boston, Montreal, New York and more.
The event helps raise money for teaching kids, Bambara said, something he sees as essential to the gym’s mission. Bambara was raised by a single mother and said boxing taught him all the lessons he needed to succeed as a young man.
Now, the Combat Fitness crew returns that favor by teaming up with other New England fighting gyms and promotions — giving troubled youth an outlet to express themselves and learn discipline and self-motivation at bootcamps.
“We work with the Mill School, and we do wrestling camps with them, we do boxing camps with them,” Bambara said. “We’ve worked with South Burlington High School and Winooski High School doing six-to-ten week programs with students who might be struggling, and we’ve actually retained some of them, which is wonderful.”
In martial arts, battles are as much internal as they are external. Stepping into the ring for the first time and seeing the crowd can be daunting. Everything you’ve been taught goes out the window, and getting knocked down is demoralizing.
But learning to get back up is the essence of martial arts — not winning or losing, Bambara said.
Patrick Man, one of the gym’s fighters dubbed “The Scholar,” faced his fear of losing during his first pro fight.
“I just lost my legs under me, and I couldn’t fire back,” said Man. “I was like, ‘This is the lowest I’ll ever be in my boxing career, maybe even in my life.’ But I can still pull through and feel and be supported by everyone around me.”
After his first fight, Man reached the finals of the Tri-State Golden Gloves tournament several years ago. The work ethic that helped propel him there also helped him earn a mechanical engineering degree, he said.
“You don’t want to go for good enough,” said Ben Stone, one of the gym’s students. “You want to go for your best. You want to go for awesome. I didn’t really have that drive, but martial arts planted the seeds of not just striving and being able to put in effort but wanting to be the best version of myself.”