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This is Where it all Began...
There is a small boxing
gym located on Detroit's Eastside, operated by the City, called the Cannon
Recreation Center. Since 1948, hundreds of inner-city kids have traveled
through Cannon's doors to learn basic boxing skills. Most kids would stay
in the program long enough to perfect a good stance and collect a bloody
nose or two. Boxing skills are a necessity on the playgrounds of Detroit,
and most of the kids would come to the gym just long enough to ensure that
they would be able to hold their own on the playground. Those who stayed on longer eventually competed in amateur competitions, but soon returned to the playground. About a dozen years ago, a group of little boys, including Leo Nolan and Rydell Booker, proved they had real fighters' hearts by doing something not many of the young men who passed through cannon's doors had done... they came back for a second year of boxing.
Each year after that, the
same two little boys would travel together from one competition to
another. One by one, they both won national boxing titles. In fact, the
little team from Detroit won the "National Team Trophy" every year from
1988 through 2000: an unprecedented 12 year run.
By April 2001, Rydell
Booker became the #1 Ranked Heavyweight in the United States when he won
the US Challenge at Lake Placid, New York. The little boys had outgrown
the amateur competitions as well as surpassed everyone's expectations. Having worked as a team for all those years, the duo that had been together since childhood, decided to stick together as professional boxers. Rydell left the USA TEAM in 2001 and the two amateur boxers turned professional, as a team... TEAMCANNON.
They had walked into the
gym as individual little boys wanting to learn how to fight on the
playground.... Now, they walk into professional boxing... as a TEAM... to
show the world what little boys with fighter's hearts can turn into. |
