For 82 years, The New York Daily News Golden Gloves boxing tournament has represented the pinnacle of amateur boxing in the New York area. It is a shot for men and women with regular day jobs to try their clenched, taped hands at being the best at a grueling sport. Age is no limitation for the people who work their way up through the four-month-long competition.
That’s a good thing for the borough of Queens, which fielded fighters at April 17 and 18’s Madison Square Garden finals at opposite ends of the age spectrum.
At 34-years-old, Ahmad Mickens, the oldest boxer in the tournament, lost in the finals of the 178-pound open championship to David Thompson. Mickens is a Jamaica, Queens, resident who commutes each day to Revolution Fitness in Stamford, Connecticut, where he trains clients young and old. For more than seven years, he sparred with Akbar Muhammad, a professional heavyweight, and Spencer McCullom, an Olympic regional champion. A motivational speaker at various public schools and universities, he said he works boxing into the training regimen of many of his clients.
Mickens had a tough road to the 2009 finals. For four years, he came just shy of the finals at the WaMu Theater. This year, though, he barely edged favorite Sean Monaghan in the semifinals in Freeport, Long Island. The decision was 3-2. After that bout, he told The Daily News that he “just felt it was my time to make the finals. That’s why I got so emotional because no one expected me to win. But I always believed in myself.”
Mickens was joined at the finals by Joseph Williams, Jr., a 21-year-old from the Edgemere projects in Rockaway. Williams currently lives in Jamaica with his wife and two kids, and he trains at the Rockaway Ropes Boxing Club. On April 18, the second day of finals, he became the 201-plus-pound novice champion.
Williams, a super heavyweight who weighs 215, ignored his bulky credentials and relied on speed and agility to get past Patrick Neumann, a Ridgewood, New Jersey, native who just so happens to be Williams’ hitting partner. A flurry of quick lefts and rights won him the bout in impressive fashion, welcoming him to a club of Golden Gloves champions whose members range from Sugar Ray Robinson to Hector Camacho to Riddick Bowe.
