TITLE: NATURAL FIGHTERS

Modena, 2016.
A shed built next to the parish church. There is a small door that resembles the artist's entrance to a theatre. Once inside, the corridor walls are white, half panelled, and damp. A pause, juggling with keys and padlocks in front of the locker. Then athletes running, sweating, following precise rituals in the large, unadorned rectangle of the gym, among punch bags and speed bags, caught between mirrors on both sides.
Hands bandaged to protect the knuckles, wearing boxing gloves and mouth guards, jumping rope, flexing necks from side to side, trying out different combinations of jabs, uppercuts and hooks, hoping to absorb them slowly and transform them into automatic reactions.
It's an experience, the ring, not a fight for survival as you would find in a Jack London novel.
A variety of bodies, ethnic groups, ages. North African Arabs with Southerners, girls, and round-bellied middle-aged men suffering from spinal curvature. Faces, pronounced noses, high foreheads, tattooed arms, the long hair of young female boxers. Different degrees of sociability, or none at all.
A cross-section of humanity, hinting at sociological narratives, telling complex stories, implying migratory flows.
What do these boxers do, when they don’t fight? More often they are almost childishly polite, impressing with their kindness. They enjoy being photographed, sometimes they even strike a pose. The guarded stance needed in the ring is dropped, and dissolves in self-irony. There is a quote attributed to Mike Tyson: “Outside of boxing, everything is so boring.”
Is this really the case?

AUTHOR: Roberto Solomita (Italy)