GENE HACKMAN used to attack bad guys on the streets of Brooklyn, where there are now plans to build an urban beach.
Big Gene hunts them through traffic, jumps over trash cans, and slams them on dirty streets in the shadow of this city’s greatest bridges. There must be a trash can – a trash can for the locals – on the streets of New York in all the movies from the seventies.
That posh part of the city is now a far cry from Hackman’s hound-day afternoons Connect France, but there’s still some old-school soul in the borough of New York City. Boxing and boxing gyms have mostly disappeared over time, possibly against the times; In Brooklyn there are obstacles.
Sure enough, Paulie Malignaggi left the icy streets of her childhood in Brooklyn for Florida when the temperature dropped. In this city, he is boxing royalty and he can do what he wants. In my opinion, his fight with Miguel Cotto at the Garden earned him a ticket for life. And then the Brownsville boys will forever be local idols. Mark Breland of Brooklyn is from Bedford-Stuyvesant, a place so majestic that every time I hear it, I have a strange feeling in my mind. Brooklyn can fight, make no mistake.
Now, in the cold heart of the harshest winter in a long, long time, I met a girl named Meg Lazar. She is an amateur boxer at Gleason’s. She works with Heather Hardy in that legendary gym. She works in a nice bar. She lives and breathes boxing in Brooklyn. She walked home in the dark boxing and trying out the moves. She demonstrates hooks in the middle of tables where people sip cocktails with a 2-inch layer of milk foam topping their glasses. She’s as old-fashioned as any old-fashioned boxing nut can be. You know she watches Sugars on her phone.
She has fought twice and the third fight will be in April. She recently got pneumonia, but has only recently returned to the gym. “I miss it every day. Every day,” she told me at Theater in the Garden last weekend.
Heather Hardy teaches Meg Lazar how to box
At night, she watched every fight, taking notes in her head. She likes Skye Nicholson’s appreciation of distance and time. Lazar has a high seat in one of the slots, a really great spot for tracking the fighters’ movements, not just the action of their fists. It’s always good to take a moment to a battle, see more of the punches.
She has a good line for every boxer – winners and losers – on the bill. She’s observant, monitoring, and not skimming over phones and conversations. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked to someone who actually participated in wars. Al Siesta has, Jon Pegg has, Carl Greaves has. Every war. Very pleased. She jumps from one fight to another, often panting in her recollection and enthusiasm. And by the way, she was right. She has identified a number of notifications and knows when the referrer is in trouble. Know when the angle is too tight.
“Skye moves like a fairy with endless energy,” she said. “She just hovered over the ring instead of walking on it.” Amanda Serrano and Richardson Hitchins were also commended.
Late that night, in the freezing darkness, she threw punches and moved her legs as she walked home from the subway. She’s trying out moves she’s seen in the Garden fights. In the bar where she works, the next night, people look up from their grilled truffles and trumpets as she shows me what she’s thrown. The kid looks like he can fight and she’s a great reminder of the raw excitement the sport can still generate. Let’s face it, the side of the ring can be a wormhole.
In front of the ring, Lazar has climbed rocks, ran marathons and is not a fan of boxing. She joined Gleason’s in 2019 as part of a plan to give bartenders a healthier lifestyle. That’s it, concatenated. She has no boxing hero; In the gym, she found locals. She found The Heat.
“My first heroes were the guys at the gym who protected me,” says Lazar. “I guess the entire community at Gleason’s is very heroic.” Now she knows her modern fighters, studying them.
She had heard of Serrano’s regimen, the battle to gain weight, the struggle and sacrifice of someone who had lost his life in the boxing business. She will hear more stories of struggle from Hardy – not just for women, men who have been overlooked, ignored, ruined, abandoned in the cold and forgotten for a while. long time. That might just be the great American boxing story.
I told her about the sacrifices of Ramla Ali and Nicholson, the days away from family and loved ones, the belief in the dream of boxing. It’s no secret that Ali turned away from big, lucrative gigs to stay at camp. It’s also a sacrifice, no mistake.
There are thousands of Meg Lazars in our boxing community, kids with wide eyes fighting like amateurs, chasing something. By the way, not all children. She’s a great example of the pure joy of just sitting around watching boxing, sitting in the middle of a crazy crowd, and enjoying even bad fights. I sit with people who usually come to the empty seat after five or six fights. She’s my type of boxing fan.
And, by the way, she’s a Gene Hackman fan.
Skye Nicolson vs Tania Alvarez at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden on February 4, 2023 (Al Bello/Getty Images)
