Fight Night at a Downtown Social Club

Chicago’s south Loop seems as if it’s always dark even during the daytime.

Not much sunlight hits the pavement. It has to filter through skyscrapers, steel girders and the spaces between the elevated train tracks.

It was dark and freezing Thursday around suppertime. It was Rocky-getting-ready-for-Apollo-Creed weather.  

One of the fancy social clubs near the Chicago Board of Trade was offering its moneyed members an amateur boxing show, dinner included, in a warm fourth-story banquet hall.

Chris Hill, a senior at , had a problem from the get-go. He had to do homework after his fight, something to do with “a humanities paper."

Hill’s coach, Tony Prignits, a tough-talking native of London who speaks with a Cockney accent, asked matchmaker Sam Colonna if his fighter could have a spot on the top of the card. 

“No problem,” Colonna said. “You’re the first fight.”

“Now I’m really nervous,” Hill said. “I’ve never been the first fight before.”

Still, there was a wait. The show started at 8pm.

Hill warmed up in the club’s hallway by hitting target mitts held by Prignits.  They were the entertainment for the club’s security guards.  Hill’s punches were exploding like firecrackers as he threw orthodox three-punch combinations. 

Hill, a middleweight with , looked like a winner. 

Hill was facing Dion Henderson from the Chicago Boxing Club. Henderson looked mean. He was jacked like Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime, the same kind of knotty muscles that indicate power and speed.  

A spectator sitting behind Hill’s corner told Prignits that he had a lot of money riding on Hill. Was it a good bet?

“You bet on the right fighter,” Prignits told the spectator.

Hill won the first round.

But, like many young amateur boxers, he wasn’t using his jab.  He was throwing all bombs – hooks and straight rights.  He was wearing himself out, Prignits said. 

Halfway through the second round, Hill was running out of steam.

And the third round he had a point taken away for pushing his opponent after the referee told them to break from a clinch. Henderson won on points.

What now for Hill? Homework.