RICHMOND, Va. — Sandwiched between a Chinese restaurant and a car repair shop, you can find amateur and professional boxers training in the same ring. It’s the vision of Eric Ash who has loved boxing since he was a child.
He discovered the local boxing community lacked training facilities after establishing Vintage Boxing Gym in Scott’s Addition on Arthur Ashe Boulevard.
Ash aims to put Richmond on the nation’s “boxing map” along with his wife and gym general manager, Elizabeth Cane.
Their efforts appear to be working as classes are full of members donning boxing gloves and a fighting spirit. Some of those members travel from Virginia Beach and Newport News every day to attend Ash’s classes.
He’s taught Navy Seals and even the VCU Men’s basketball team for three weeks to help them prepare for the court.
Online fitness resource Total Shape analyzed the number of average monthly Google searches in each state for different workouts, discovering boxing is number one in Virginia.
Boxing beats Pilates, dance, HIIT and yoga in number of searches — which round out the top five most popular forms of exercise in the Commonwealth. Boxing was also number one overall on a national level.
“What gives me the most joy about being a coach is seeing when someone clicks and they're like, ‘Wow, there's a lot to this,’” Ash recalled. “Then it's like putting a puzzle together. It's like playing chess and they want to learn all the movements, all the strategies, and asking so many questions.”
While women do participate in his co-ed group trainings, Vintage Boxing will soon add women’s-only classes. Cane said it can be intimidating for some to train alongside seasoned professionals.
“Being a female, [boxing] made me feel very confident. I don't feel like I can beat anybody up or kill anybody,” Cane joked. “But I feel like if I got in a difficult situation, I could defend myself and give myself time to run away.”
Vintage Boxing Gym is bringing professional boxing back to Richmond on Sept. 15 with a series of fights at the John Marshall Virginia ballroom.
The event will air that night on pay-per-view through Fite TV, which Ash sees as another way to promote Richmond to the boxing community near and far.
