Cra­dle of Champions

Thought­ful and engag­ing, Cra­dle of Cham­pi­ons is the kind of doc­u­men­tary that one might put for­ward if asked to argue the case for boxing’s con­tin­ued exis­tence in the face of detrac­tors. It fol­lows three pro­tag­o­nists as they com­pete in boxing’s most famed and his­tor­i­cal ama­teur com­pe­ti­tion, known as The Gold­en Gloves tour­na­ment. The New York branch of the Gold­en Gloves is often a tick­et to the pro­fes­sion­al lev­el, i.e. fame and mon­ey for those lucky and tal­ent­ed few.

As such, these is a phe­nom­e­nal­ly impor­tant ten week peri­od for the young ath­letes from the New York City area who are com­pet­ing. Mak­ing a doc­u­men­tary around this excit­ing and pres­surised time in an ama­teur fighter’s life seems like easy pick­ings, but first-time film­mak­er Bar­tle Bull’s char­ac­ter-dri­ven approach works above and beyond the para­me­ters of that built-in dra­ma. The film builds inex­orably toward the semi-finals and then the finals of this prodi­gious tour­na­ment, but the heft of the emo­tion emanates from the human­i­ty with­in it.

Two of the fight­ers Bull fol­lows – Titus Williams and James Wilkins – are in the same weight class and thus will even­tu­al­ly face one anoth­er. Titus is old­er and more self-assured, with a pre­vi­ous Gold­en Glove cham­pi­onship under his belt and a tight, dis­ci­plined fight­ing style. ​“He’s a nice church­go­ing kid. Just not so nice in the ring,” his train­er apt­ly sum­maris­es. James is younger, more unruly, and some­times finds it dif­fi­cult to take instruc­tion from his coach­es. He was raised by a cash-strapped but lov­ing fam­i­ly and has a ten­den­cy to buck against authority.

The third fight­er is intro­duced to us feet first, with a close-up of her red-paint­ed toes on the scales. Nisa Rodriguez is a sin­gle moth­er from the South Bronx with five Gold­en Glove cham­pi­onships to her name. She came to her love of the sport in her teens, and since then has become the ​‘fight­ing pride’ of her noto­ri­ous­ly low-income neigh­bour­hood, teach­ing all-girls bas­ket­ball in her time away from the ring and rais­ing her young son. Every­thing about her seems touched by an infec­tious warmth and energy.

At the ama­teur and neigh­bour­hood lev­el, the retired cops, marines and fire­fight­ers who train these young peo­ple are also giv­en a look-in. Two such men, Pat Rus­so and Joe Hig­gins, are mak­ing a com­mit­ted and mea­sur­able ser­vice to the young peo­ple in their areas. Gang vio­lence is min­imised by the exis­tence of alter­na­tive recre­ation­al activ­i­ty, and val­ues around dis­ci­pline, con­trol and respect are encouraged.

Bar­tle places par­tic­u­lar focus on Joe Hig­gins’ sto­ry, as he was a fire­fight­er on duty dur­ing ⁹⁄₁₁, los­ing friends and suf­fer­ing major dam­age to his health in the sub­se­quent years. As he mov­ing­ly points out, going to the gym every day helps him as much as it helps the kids. Besides, retired police offi­cer Pat dead­pans, ​“They couldn’t believe they got the oppor­tu­ni­ty to hit a cop and get away with it.”

Sad­ly, the film informs us that from 2007 onward, many of these free box­ing pro­grammes and their gyms have been closed by the PAL (police activ­i­ty leagues), in spite of their marked effect on pre­vent­ing crime and fos­ter­ing rela­tion­ships between com­mu­ni­ties and law enforce­ment. With an eye towards revers­ing that and a pow­er­ful empa­thy for its pro­tag­o­nists, Cra­dle of Cham­pi­ons deserves cred­it for its touch­ing, intro­spec­tive look into the impor­tance of this sport for work­ing-class kids.