Destyne Butler Jr. was supposed to be an Olympian, not an inmate.
The divergent path he took toward a promising pro boxing career is at the heart of “Ringside,” an award-winning, 90-minute documentary that’ll premiere on Showtime on Friday night at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT. Filmed during a nine-year period, “Ringside” examines the lives of Butler, an unbeaten welterweight prospect who served four years in Illinois’ correctional system, and Kenneth Sims Jr., a junior welterweight who also navigated his way through extremely challenging socioeconomic circumstances in the south side of Chicago.
“He had natural talent,” Destyne Butler Sr. said of his son’s incarceration during the documentary. “He just made some bad decisions, which sometimes, you can’t get out of. I was mad, hurt, upset because you ain’t have to do that. I made all the sacrifices for this family and you wanna do some dumb stuff like that?”
The younger Butler, who’s now 25, is off to a 9-0 start, including five knockouts, in a pro career that began in September 2018. The 26-year-old Sims has gone 14-2-1 (5 KOs) in six years as a pro, including appearances on Showtime’s prospect series, “ShoBox: The New Generation.”
“Filmed over the course of nine years, ‘Ringside’ is a complex, emotional account of two youths fighting to survive both professionally and personally,” said Stephen Espinoza, Showtime’s president of sports and event programming. “This remarkable film follows two gifted young boxers and the fathers who guide them, as they strive to overcome a seemingly never-ending series of personal and societal obstacles. The result is a moving story about hope, ambition, self-discipline, resilience and redemption. It is the type of provocative story, at the intersection of sports and society, that has become the hallmark of Showtime Sports Documentary Films.”
The documentary won the “Silver Hugo Award” at the Chicago International Film Festival.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
