Freddie Roach - Wild Card Boxing Gym

I went looking for Manny Pacquiao, like I said I would. I told my family that someone needed to avenge all the Mexican and Chicano fighters that have been floored by the the Filipino superhero boxer. Lucky for him he was absent the day I walked in to the 2nd floor bustling gym. It was as packed and busy as a sweatshop minus the sewing machines. The hit HBO documentary series 24/7 portrays the gym as larger than it actually is. I had to throw a few left hooks just to walk through the joint. Trainer and owner Freddie Roach is the main man in charge. Freddie's brother intercepted my friend Kiki and I and gave us the royal tour of the grounds. He also added that he had spent some time in Texas locked up in fed prison in Texarkana; He unveiled his collage of tattoos to prove it. We shook the hands of future title contenders and they shook ours. Mutual respect pervading the embrace. I offered my insights on the boxing scene with a few trainers and they reciprocated with theirs. It was verbal sparring by way of knowledge of the sport. Boxing gyms are refuges, communities of their own and the hospitality always abounds. This picture with Freddie is proof of that. The photo will soon hang in Richard Lord's boxing gym, my home gym, back in Austin, TX.