CASPER — At a gym on the north side of Wyoming’s Oil City, a boxing coach expresses the ways boxing teaches important lessons about society for young people struggling in his community.
“It molds individuals into better people by enhancing their character, mindset and abilities to positively impact themselves and society,” Clayton Jensen wrote in a paper he calls “Why Boxing.”
Jensen is a former boxer at the Casper Boxing Club who now serves as the facility’s head coach. He still sees the sport as relevant, even as boxing’s popularity has been challenged by mixed martial arts, wrestling and other individual sports and activities.
“A lot of people have a misunderstanding of boxing,” Jensen said. “You can look at it two different ways, the sport of boxing and the art of boxing.”
In Casper, Cheyenne, Laramie, Jackson and other Wyoming towns, gyms that offer boxing are still getting interest from amateurs who want to put on the gloves.
Tipping Point
But while boxers still can dance around the ring and hit the speed bags, the sport is not what it used to be when names like Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson and Joe Louis ruled.
“The Tyson fight last Friday was popular,” said Janell Mellish, owner of Arena Training Institute gyms in Cheyenne and Laramie. She was referencing the hugely hyped fight between Tyson and Jake Paul.
“But Tyson’s from a different era of boxing, that’s what we hang on to when we’re talking about boxing,” she said. “It’s that era of boxing that was so amazing to see. We really haven’t had that type of culture since the ‘90s, so the tipping point has really gone more toward the MMA side.”
She said there are no athletes in the boxing world today that have the name recognition or influence like those of the past.
Mellish said that both of her facilities feature Olympic USA Boxing and attract a lot of women and men who are interested in the fitness of the sport. There are also several members of the gyms who are part of a Parkinson’s recovery program called “Rock Steady” that use non-contact boxing exercises and training to regain movements and coordination threatened by the disease. The Cheyenne gym also offers jiu-jitsu.
Two teens in her gym are seriously pursuing the USA Boxing program, and she has a couple of adults also interested in competition. She has been talking to a promoter about putting on fights in Cheyenne.
“We’re kind of excited to rally that and to make boxing a sport that appeals again to the masses,” she said. “It’s the art form really, and it’s a great self-defense on your feet. It takes a lot of strength mentally and so to bring it back to Wyoming with a culture that we are mentally tough, coed, would be great.”
Jackson Gym
In Jackson, David Cox, co-owner of Jackson Hole MMA, said when his gym opened in 2016, he offered boxing, jiu-jitsu and wrestling classes. Boxing interest initially took off, but retention of those members became an issue. Now the gym offers kickboxing and that seems to do much better in their market. He said he still provides some private boxing classes for some students and boxing remains fundamental to kickboxing.
Cox believes currently, the sport suffers from integrity and the lack of role models at the top to inspire young boxers. He said he likes to watch historic fights and calls the Welterweight Championship bout between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran in June 20, 1980, possibly the best fight of all times.
He points out during the fight night between Tyson and Jake Paul, the Welterweight Championship was just an undercard bout. Cox sees that as an example of the state of boxing.
A wrestler in college, Cox said that he first turned to learning boxing before his other training to try his abilities in an MMA ring. He believes boxing offers a lot for participants such as cardio and self-defense.
“Just having the confidence to defend yourself if you need to typically allows you to make better decisions, aside from all the health benefits and the initial benefit you feel after a hard workout,” he said.
Cox’s gym offers youth and adult programs for kickboxing, but numbers are down on the youth side when compared with jiu-jitsu. He estimates 35 youth members across the kickboxing, jiu jitsu and wrestling classes while they have 45 to 55 adults in those programs.
In Casper, Jensen has about 50 boxers in his program that include 20 in a women’s class, 18 men and women in an intermediate class and 10 to 15 beginners and five to 10 in the peewee boxer category. Boxing is the one and only focus in his facility.
He said most of the women are interested in the health benefits associated with boxing as well as self-defense aspect of the sport.
‘Why’ Boxing
A former boxer out of the club — spending 10 years in the ring as an amateur — Jensen has thought a lot about the “why” of the sport — he has spent the past three years coming up with answers and writing them out.
Some of them involve boxing’s basic applications to life. The sport’s five main principles involve footwork, balance, centeredness, timing, and power — all can apply to living a better life.
Jensen sees footwork as “groundedness” that encompasses “stability and rootedness.” He believes that helps teach boxers to be stable and firm in decisions and helps develop reliability in character.
In a life application, “balance” promotes a “balanced life” where the boxer learns to “manage priorities, emotions, and responsibilities effectively.”
In a city that has experienced several instances of youth violence and weapons, he said the boxing program helps kids who are being bullied , those with low self-esteem or introverted to build confidence and deal with those issues. He characterizes bullying as a “vice” that culture has created.
“When we start working out and these guys start working and learning how, then they start learning the virtues and start seeing they are worthy,” he said. “Then they get the confidence to start doing things and one of the things is dealing with the bully when that comes down.”
As coach, he views himself as a mentor to many of the boxers and said one of the rules of the club is that boxers keep their aggression in the ring.
Casper Boxing Club Coach Clayton Jensen has thought a lot about the benefits of boxing. He says the sport kept him out of trouble as a young man. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Jackson Hole MMA, left, began with offering boxing classes, but found difficulties with retaining members. It now focuses on kickboxing, mixed martial arts and jiujitsu. Janell Mellish, right, said her Arena Boxing Institute initially began with women’s classes and now has expanded to women, men, and youth. They teach boxing and jiu jitsu. (Courtesy Jackson Hole MMA; Courtesy Arena Training Institute) 
The Arena Training Institute initially began as a place to teach women to box. (Courtesy Arena Training Institute) 
The Casper Boxing Club has classes for youth, women, and the “Rock Steady” program for Parkinson’s patients. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
A Coach’s Philosophy
Jensen found a Harvard professor on YouTube named Steve Gluck who differentiates between the art and the sport of the craft.
The professor even includes the Myers-Briggs personality traits to differentiate between a boxer and a puncher.
He also points to the rules of boxing that includes “no hitting somebody when they are down” “no wrestling” or forcing someone into submission and fighting from a standing position.
It’s not about domination, it’s about freedom, Jensen said. While other martial arts and wresting dominate the opponent, boxers even knocking the other down do not force submission.
“In boxing both men walk in in there by freedom or free will,” he said. “You can knock a gentleman out, but he has the free will to get back up and fight. You never take your free will away from you.”
By contrast, MMA, wrestling and other martial arts involve going to the mat and forcing submission on an opponent.
“We’ve seen kids come in who are being bullied or whatever and we work with them and all of a sudden you will see, depending on the culture of where they are at, if they have the support, they will do real good,” Jensen said.
Boxing As Motivator
He said his own life is an example.
Boxing became a way to stay out of the alcohol and drugs that were part of his environment growing up. At Casper Boxing Club, the youth participants have to keep a “C” average in school and avoid any fighting outside the ring if they want to travel to competitions such as Silver Gloves, Golden Gloves or USA Boxing.
“It’s not worth it for them to do anything at school. If they want to fight, we have plenty of people they can fight in the ring,” Jensen said.
Casper’s gym also participates in the “Rock Steady” program for Parkinson’s patients and there are a handful of participants in that program seeing success.
Mellish points out that Wyoming has always been a place where boxing and other fighting sports have done well. Cheyenne hosted the first “bare knuckle” sanctioned boxing event in the U.S. six or seven years ago and the state has also allowed Lethwei fighting, a Burmese boxing art that allows contestants to use their head.
And Wyoming cowboys on ranches in the late 1800s knew the importance of being able to hold their own with their fists when needed. An article in The Cheyenne Daily Leader on Oct. 4, 1887, extolled the virtues of the “pokes” in Hat Creek.
“At every ranch the dumbbells, Indian clubs, boxing gloves and fencing foils occupy prominent places,” the newspaper reported. “Next to riding, boxing is the most popular pastime among the Hat Creek athletes … the majority of whom could whip about seven-eighths of the alleged ‘scrappers’ who portraits are printed in the tinted sporting papers.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
