40 Charleston boxers are getting ready to rumble

By Andy Brack

What do you call 40 athletes wearing boxing gloves? Battle on the Bricks 2 – a four-hour, 20-bout charity boxing event featuring the best of the Lowcountry’s amateur boxers who are raising money to help sick children, veterans and students.

Just around the corner on April 12 is Charleston’s very own Friday Night Fight. Organizers say the male and female boxers have already jolted ahead of last year’s fundraising goal and are on the way to raising $200,000 in an exciting event sure to knock off everyone’s socks.

“All of our boxers have used this event as a way to challenge themselves to the maximum of their abilities,” said Ryan Eleuteri, a local entrepreneur known for founding Charleston Mix Bloody Mary. “They have full-time jobs, friends and families and they are still getting into these gyms to train six to seven days per week — sometimes for two hours a day.”

But their physical commitment extends to a genuine enthusiasm for the event’s three charities, the MUSC Children’s Hospital, the Warrior Surf Foundation and the College of Charleston Athletic Fund.

About the April 12 event

This year’s bouts are April 12 at TD Arena in Charleston. Photos provided.

This year’s event is already bigger than last year’s, which featured 28 boxers in 14 bouts. The 2023 boxing battle was the largest boxing event in state history.

So far this year, the 40 competitors have almost doubled the $80,000 in charitable giving from last year’s first-time event. They’re pushing to raise $200,000 by the April 12 matches on behalf of the Charleston Boxing Foundation, a nonprofit set up in 2022.

Click here to donate or support a boxer. (Some VIP tickets and tables are left.)

This year’s event, which will start at 6:30 p.m. at the College of Charleston’s TD Arena, will feature 20 matches, including seven featuring female opponents.

“The women this year are good,” Eleuteri said. “I wouldn’t want to get in the ring with a single one of them!”

Each match will be three rounds lasting 90 seconds each.

“These are USA Boxing-sanctioned bouts, all with referees and judges,” Eleuteri said. “I’m sure the boxers would love to knock out their opponent, but it will be a challenge as they will have on head protection for safety. These boxers have been training since December and are all true amateurs.”

Boxing has a rich Lowcountry history. Smokin’ Joe Frazier, a world heavyweight champion from 1970 to 1973 was born in Beaufort and was often seen in Charleston riding in a Cadillac with relatives. Today,these six local boxing clubs are helping to train amateurs for the Battle on the Brick (in alphabetical order):

Charleston Boxing Club, Charleston;
Cool Hands MMA, North Charleston;
Ethos Athletic Club, Charleston;
Hurricane Boxing on James Island;
Rodriguez Boxing Academy, Summerville; and
Savage Boxing Academy, North Charleston.

“What we’ve learned through this process is that boxing is an event that gets people genuinely excited — whether it’s the competitive nature of the bout or the fact that the fights are one-on-one,” Eleuteri said. “It has a bit of a gladiator story to it. People love the story lines — the underdog or the pull-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps stories. Boxing just connects — no pun intended — with people unlike anything else.”

What one boxer says

Charleston defense attorney Ryan Schwartz, is bursting with passion about the bout for which he’s been training for over seven months. So far, he’s raised more than $50,000 to support the event’s three charities.

“All of these folks who are fighting have never fought before,” said Schwartz, a former college pitcher at Winthrop University. “We’re all training in the local gyms and we’re putting our bodies where our mouths are.”

Schwartz, principal at Schwartz Law Firm in Mount Pleasant, said there’s nothing that he’s not enjoying about getting ready for his three rounds in the ring.

“I love the athleticism of it. The challenge of it. The hitting and being hit. It gives me relief from work and being a lawyer.”

Schwartz, who goes by the boxing name “Eastside Schwartz,” said the pain and energy that he and other boxers are going through are nothing compared to what the veterans and kids at the hospital experience.

He says the months of training and working to be ready April 12 has built enthusiasm among people supporting him.

“Everybody wants to be part of the solution,” he said. “The training has gotten people excited and they wanted to support the event.”