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Midnight Madness:
It was in the mid 1990's on the way to the Ohio State Fair that Dwayne and Sammy went at it in the back of our rented van for twelve unofficial rounds and that one fight sparked what eventually would become known to amateur boxers from across the country as "Midnight Madness." It got to be a thing where we started having amateur kids meet up at the amateur tournaments in matches at the host hotel and it even snowballed and got to the point where I would be at the National Silver Gloves in Lenexa, Kansas or the JO's in Marquette and some kid from somewhere would come up to me and say "Hey, Iceman. Are you having "Midnight Madness" tonight? Cuz' I wanna' fight Jeffrey from Cleveland."
After a kid loses in a tournament he usually has to spend the rest of the week just hanging out until the whole thing is over so he can go home with his coaches and the rest of his team. So I started having little sparring matches in the hotel room or in the training room to keep the kids that were out of the tournament busy until it was time to go home.
What it consisted of, basically, was having two kids put on sparring gloves and headgear and go at it and it eventually got be a pretty well known thing. One time in Kansas City for the Silver Gloves Nationals in 1996, at about 1 a.m., I had about thirty coaches and boxers in my hotel room watching "Midnight Madness Matches." It would be a thing where if two kids had some kind of grudge they could settle it there. The best one was when this little kid, about 11 years old, jumped up and started ripping off his shirt saying "I've wanted Super D for a long time!" He and Dwayne had already had a little beef earlier in the week in the hotel lobby and there was more than a little grudge there. The kid was hyped and ready and talked a good game. It was better, through my eyes, that we settle it like this rather than have it all brew and stew and they end fighting with no gloves and no supervision in a hallway somewhere. So they gloved up and went at it and while the Cincinnati kid talked a good game (on this night anyway) he didn't necessarily fight one. And unfortunately for him "Super D" did.
Earlier that night I had even tried to get two future Olympians, Ricardo Williams and Roberto Benitez, to match up in the room but it didn't come off (two other future Olympians were also there in my hotel room that night: Ron Siler and Jason Estrada. Who could have known that we had four future U.S. Olympians in one hotel room at the same time watching midnight madness?). Now, at that point in January 1996, it was less than two months after my twelve round fight with Michael Nunn. Ricardo had a big kid with him and he said "Hey, coach, what about YOU and my boy?" Ricky knew me as being the trainer of Sammy who was on the same USA Junior Olympic Team with him in 1997 and while I think he knew I was a boxer I don't think he realized I was a twelve round professional. I don't even think he knew my name as he used to just address me as "Coach" whereas all the other kids called me "Iceman" or "Scully." 2004 Olympian Jason Estrada's father, Roland, told him "Rick, don't do that, man. You don't wanna' do that. This dude just fought Michael Nunn for twelve rounds on TV last month!!"
That little bit of information effectively squashed my potential midnight madness debut.
I originally got the idea for this from being at the National P.A.L. tournament in 1987 in Jacksonville, Florida. I had gotten friendly earlier in the year at the Ohio State Fair with a thirteen year old kid from Kentucky with over a one hundred bouts under his belt already named Clarence Adams. Clarence, better known to the boxing world as Bones Adams, was only about 85 pounds back then but he was a very fast and sharp kid who threw a lot of punches in bunches. One day I was there at the PAL standing on the second floor of the motel balcony when I saw a large crowd gathering down below me in the parking lot. Two kids got in the middle of the crowd that had formed a circle. A ring. They put gloves and head gear on and went at it right there on the concrete like they were fighting for the championship of the world and a million dollars. Fast, furious combinations. Back and forth action. I remember thinking how skilled and sharp these little kids were. Like top tier professionals, it seemed. One of them I recognized as Clarence "Bones" Adams, the future junior featherweight champion of the world. I went for a long time telling that story never knowing who the other kid was. I always wondered who he was. What became of him? Maybe he stopped boxing not long after and never even fought in the open class? I wondered if that little kid knew he rumbled as a little kid in the parking lot of a motel in Florida with a future world champion.
So almost fifteen years later I went to Foxwoods Casino for a fight (in 2002) and for the first time since 1988 (I stopped off at the Ohio State Fair tournament in August of 1988 on my way to Chicago and met up with Bones in the Lobby of the host hotel) I saw Bones in person. All grown up now. A former world champion. Last time I saw him he was fourteen years old and the first thing I asked him was "It has always been on my mind. You gotta' tell me who that kid was that you fought in the parking lot in Florida in 1987!"
The kid in question definitely kept boxing and definitely knows he boxed a future world champion at age thirteen, too. It was Lamar Murphy, the future world lightweight title contender out of Miami.
Another spectacular fight we put on was on Halloween night 1997 right in the living room at my house. I had some of the kids over my house for Halloween including top amateur Rasheim Jefferson from Philadelphia. Rasheim, aka "Rell," was in town visiting Eric Harding and since he knew all the kids I trained from the amateur trips he decided to go out trick-or-treating with them. Once they all got back to my empty house and overcame the shock of me scaring the living daylights out of them (My friend called me on my home phone line while I stood outside and peered through the window at Rell with my cordless phone and almost gave that kid a heart attack as I told him, in a deep and sinister sounding whisper, "Take that bag off that table!!" I will never forget the look on his face as he dropped the phone, grabbed the bag and ran into the living room screaming) the talk got around to boxing and it wasn't long before we ended up slapping the gloves on Dwayne and Rell.
Dwayne was twelve years old and "Rell" was thirteen or fourteen and right in the middle of my living room floor they went at each other twelve hard rounds, toe to toe. There wasn't much room to move around and there was a bunch of kids taking up space so it was hard to maneuver which pretty much guaranteed all out amateur style action. Toe-to-toe was what it was. We scored every round of the torrid fight and in the end Rell ended up with a very close but fair hard fought twelve round decision. Dwayne went on to win the PAL Nationals one year later while Rell went on to establish himself as one of the USA's best amateur boxers as he won numerous national championship tournaments (including three National Golden Gloves titles) before turning professional in 2004.
It was in the mid 1990's on the way to the Ohio State Fair that Dwayne and Sammy went at it in the back of our rented van for twelve unofficial rounds and that one fight sparked what eventually would become known to amateur boxers from across the country as "Midnight Madness." It got to be a thing where we started having amateur kids meet up at the amateur tournaments in matches at the host hotel and it even snowballed and got to the point where I would be at the National Silver Gloves in Lenexa, Kansas or the JO's in Marquette and some kid from somewhere would come up to me and say "Hey, Iceman. Are you having "Midnight Madness" tonight? Cuz' I wanna' fight Jeffrey from Cleveland."
After a kid loses in a tournament he usually has to spend the rest of the week just hanging out until the whole thing is over so he can go home with his coaches and the rest of his team. So I started having little sparring matches in the hotel room or in the training room to keep the kids that were out of the tournament busy until it was time to go home.
What it consisted of, basically, was having two kids put on sparring gloves and headgear and go at it and it eventually got be a pretty well known thing. One time in Kansas City for the Silver Gloves Nationals in 1996, at about 1 a.m., I had about thirty coaches and boxers in my hotel room watching "Midnight Madness Matches." It would be a thing where if two kids had some kind of grudge they could settle it there. The best one was when this little kid, about 11 years old, jumped up and started ripping off his shirt saying "I've wanted Super D for a long time!" He and Dwayne had already had a little beef earlier in the week in the hotel lobby and there was more than a little grudge there. The kid was hyped and ready and talked a good game. It was better, through my eyes, that we settle it like this rather than have it all brew and stew and they end fighting with no gloves and no supervision in a hallway somewhere. So they gloved up and went at it and while the Cincinnati kid talked a good game (on this night anyway) he didn't necessarily fight one. And unfortunately for him "Super D" did.
Earlier that night I had even tried to get two future Olympians, Ricardo Williams and Roberto Benitez, to match up in the room but it didn't come off (two other future Olympians were also there in my hotel room that night: Ron Siler and Jason Estrada. Who could have known that we had four future U.S. Olympians in one hotel room at the same time watching midnight madness?). Now, at that point in January 1996, it was less than two months after my twelve round fight with Michael Nunn. Ricardo had a big kid with him and he said "Hey, coach, what about YOU and my boy?" Ricky knew me as being the trainer of Sammy who was on the same USA Junior Olympic Team with him in 1997 and while I think he knew I was a boxer I don't think he realized I was a twelve round professional. I don't even think he knew my name as he used to just address me as "Coach" whereas all the other kids called me "Iceman" or "Scully." 2004 Olympian Jason Estrada's father, Roland, told him "Rick, don't do that, man. You don't wanna' do that. This dude just fought Michael Nunn for twelve rounds on TV last month!!"
That little bit of information effectively squashed my potential midnight madness debut.
I originally got the idea for this from being at the National P.A.L. tournament in 1987 in Jacksonville, Florida. I had gotten friendly earlier in the year at the Ohio State Fair with a thirteen year old kid from Kentucky with over a one hundred bouts under his belt already named Clarence Adams. Clarence, better known to the boxing world as Bones Adams, was only about 85 pounds back then but he was a very fast and sharp kid who threw a lot of punches in bunches. One day I was there at the PAL standing on the second floor of the motel balcony when I saw a large crowd gathering down below me in the parking lot. Two kids got in the middle of the crowd that had formed a circle. A ring. They put gloves and head gear on and went at it right there on the concrete like they were fighting for the championship of the world and a million dollars. Fast, furious combinations. Back and forth action. I remember thinking how skilled and sharp these little kids were. Like top tier professionals, it seemed. One of them I recognized as Clarence "Bones" Adams, the future junior featherweight champion of the world. I went for a long time telling that story never knowing who the other kid was. I always wondered who he was. What became of him? Maybe he stopped boxing not long after and never even fought in the open class? I wondered if that little kid knew he rumbled as a little kid in the parking lot of a motel in Florida with a future world champion.
So almost fifteen years later I went to Foxwoods Casino for a fight (in 2002) and for the first time since 1988 (I stopped off at the Ohio State Fair tournament in August of 1988 on my way to Chicago and met up with Bones in the Lobby of the host hotel) I saw Bones in person. All grown up now. A former world champion. Last time I saw him he was fourteen years old and the first thing I asked him was "It has always been on my mind. You gotta' tell me who that kid was that you fought in the parking lot in Florida in 1987!"
The kid in question definitely kept boxing and definitely knows he boxed a future world champion at age thirteen, too. It was Lamar Murphy, the future world lightweight title contender out of Miami.
Another spectacular fight we put on was on Halloween night 1997 right in the living room at my house. I had some of the kids over my house for Halloween including top amateur Rasheim Jefferson from Philadelphia. Rasheim, aka "Rell," was in town visiting Eric Harding and since he knew all the kids I trained from the amateur trips he decided to go out trick-or-treating with them. Once they all got back to my empty house and overcame the shock of me scaring the living daylights out of them (My friend called me on my home phone line while I stood outside and peered through the window at Rell with my cordless phone and almost gave that kid a heart attack as I told him, in a deep and sinister sounding whisper, "Take that bag off that table!!" I will never forget the look on his face as he dropped the phone, grabbed the bag and ran into the living room screaming) the talk got around to boxing and it wasn't long before we ended up slapping the gloves on Dwayne and Rell.
Dwayne was twelve years old and "Rell" was thirteen or fourteen and right in the middle of my living room floor they went at each other twelve hard rounds, toe to toe. There wasn't much room to move around and there was a bunch of kids taking up space so it was hard to maneuver which pretty much guaranteed all out amateur style action. Toe-to-toe was what it was. We scored every round of the torrid fight and in the end Rell ended up with a very close but fair hard fought twelve round decision. Dwayne went on to win the PAL Nationals one year later while Rell went on to establish himself as one of the USA's best amateur boxers as he won numerous national championship tournaments (including three National Golden Gloves titles) before turning professional in 2004.
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