4/11/2024 0 Comments The ring boxing clubHe says he’s interested in the stories of the people arriving in his Instagram DMs. They feel like this is the safe place where you can see fights and nothing dodgy’s going to happen after.” “They don’t want to be going on that path, but that’s the only path in front of them. “A lot of the fighters, as much as they might not be in a gang, they might be around gang people,” Remdizz explains once the fights are over. Everyone gets to live.” Previous events have included moments of silence for victims of knife crime, and fighters boxing in shirts printed with photos of friends who’ve passed. “If you’ve got a problem with someone and it’s probably going to go to that point,” he says, “then bring it in here, squash it, go home. An instinctive entrepreneur, his vision is constantly expanding – but the guiding philosophy of KOTR is the one stamped in capital letters on the banner behind him, on the back of his T-shirt, and on the ring’s fastenings: “PUT DOWN THE KNIFE, USE YOUR LEFT AND RIGHT”.īy containing violence in controlled spaces, Remdizz believes he can offer a counter to the tide of serious youth violence that’s risen in his city by 200 percent over the past two years. Remdizz, still in his early twenties, wants to make today’s location a more permanent HQ, providing training facilities across a range of fighting disciplines. In the 12 months since that first back garden scrap, KOTR has popped up in a pub, a car park and hosted match-ups in Birmingham and Amsterdam. (Today, there’s chicken, rice and peas, and mac and cheese laid on by a friend of his mum, and drinks dished out from cardboard boxes.) Hampered by injuries over a three-year Muay Thai career, Remdizz had set out with a vision of building his own grassroots promotion that could surface new talent and, eventually, provide an income not just for himself but for others supplying food and drinks and dressing the fighters. ![]() ![]() ![]() It began life in 2021, in a back garden with a ring consisting of foam-wrapped fence posts and a few strips of construction tape. King Of The Ring, or KOTR, is his brainchild. Remdizz – who only wanted to go by his nickname – twirls and waltzes and slides between the competitors, adjudicating, and then, when it’s all done, declaring a win, loss or draw.
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