At the legendary Gleason's Gym, on the second floor of a nondescript warehouse near New York's Brooklyn Bridge, some of the Wall Street's toughest financial pros have traded in their pinstripes and wingtips for boxing trunks and sparring gloves.
Mike Tyson may soon have blockbuster competition – heavy duty – from Wall Street.
And it all started ten years ago when Gleason's opened up its ring to the white-collar brigade of male and female pros.
Now stock and bond traders and investment bankers (and folks like doctors and a New York state judge) work out with IBF welterweight champion Zab "Super" Judah and other boxing giants.
"The fellows on Wall Street are very aggressive," admitted Bruce Silverglade, Gleason's owner. "They have to be. In this business you need the desire to win."
"That's exactly what boxers have," added Silverglade in an interview one Saturday morning at the gym. "Fighters are extremely good businessmen. If they had the education, they would be top Wall Street executives."
Bronx Origins
Founded in 1937 in the Bronx, Gleason's relocated to midtown Manhattan before moving recently to its current location. Gleason's now has more than 800 regular members. The pugilists include 200 professional boxers and 200 amateurs. The rest includes more than 200 white-collar pros and other regulars.
Among them is a straight-talking Texas native John Oden, a partner and money manager at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
About eight years ago Oden was adding a middle-aged bulge. "What led me to boxing was the challenge of remaining physically fit as I grew older," said Oden, speaking with a friendly Southern drawl. "I love a challenge in business, in sports, in any aspect of life."
On this morning, he is gearing up for a match billed "Capital Punishment – Settlement Day in the City." It's a boxing tournament that is scheduled to take place in London between New York- and London-based white-collar boxers.
Oden, who's "a little over 50" and stands a strapping 6-foot-4, has participated in three white-collar sparring matches. He is now set to fight his fourth – a fight against Marcus Overhouse, a derivatives trader at Deutsche Bank AG London.
The Sanford C. Bernstein money manager steps out of the ring, unhitches his protective helmet, and sits down for a chat about his fascination with the world's most combative sport.
In his early 40s, Oden "jumpstarted" his athletic career by taking up two sports he had never done before. (He was already an avid tennis player and long distance runner). The criteria were great exercise and fun. Oden chose basketball. The second choice was boxing.
Over the course of a year he undertook a daily regimen of running three miles around Central Park, jumping rope, weight lifting, and shadow boxing. "There's a tremendous amount of training," Oden said. "You don't need to be a body builder. But you need to have a certain amount of strength."
Oden eventually became a member of the New York Athletic Club Boxing Team. He began to compete in matches at the NYAC and had some success (unofficial record 6-1-1). He currently holds the tile of Heavyweight Champion of the NYAC. "I am just looking for great exercise and camaraderie," Oden quipped. "I am not looking to turn pro."
Oden was far from super-confident when he entered the ring. "It is so intimidating to see this big, ugly guy coming right at you with a mean look in his eye and he is about to swing at your head," he recalled.
Other Wall Street pros sympathize. But like Oden, they are not discouraged.
Jeff Triana, 34, a managing director at Tiburor Asset Management, a New York hedge fund, said he boxes at Gleason's for the sheer challenge. "It's a very difficult sport," he said. Added another Gleason's pugilist Ken Livingston, a 33-year-old operations trainee at Bear Stearns & Co., "I like to train at something where you try to achieve a goal."
World Famous Boxers
Over 100 of the world's most famous boxers have trained at Gleason's. The gym's walls have photos of Mike Tyson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Frazier, Jake La Motta, Muhammad Ali, and dozens of other boxing greats.
A vintage poster, inscribed with an inspirational message, intones: "Now, whoever has courage and a strong and collected spirit in his breast let him come forward, lace on the gloves and put up his hands – Virgil."
Silverglade looks more like a financial analyst than the proprietor of a boxing gym. He holds a degree in economics from Gettysburg College. For 16 years he worked as a manager at Sears Roebuck & Company. Silverglade quit his job at the department store chain in 1976 and turned to refereeing and judging amateur boxing matches. Two years later, he switched over to the administrative side of the sport. For the past 22 years he has owned and operated the world's most famous boxing gym.
The super-charged, macho and sweaty atmosphere at Gleason's brings to mind images from so many of the classic fight films – Body and Soul, The Champ, The Great White Hope, The Harder They Fall, Raging Bull, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Somebody Up There Likes Me, and the innumerable Rocky movies.
Like market making and position trading, boxing requires a fair amount of preparation and incredible concentration.
"Boxing is not just two guys brawling it out, it's actually an art," said Ricky Young, a former junior welterweight and world contender and a trainer at Gleason's and at Columbia University. "You have to get in great shape. You have to build up your endurance and learn your skills before you step into the ring."
Rocky Graziano, the former middleweight champion of the world, once said, "The fight for survival is the fight." That's exactly what attracted Oden to boxing.
All sports, said Oden, are mock forms of combat. "Boxing is the ultimate sport," he said. "It is one-on-one, mano-a-mano. There is no team. It's you versus him."
Boxing is the ultimate challenge for Oden. "You have to be in great shape and it has an element that all other sports do not have – the fear factor," he said. "If you are not prepared, you are going to get hurt."
While some white-collar pros like Oden revel in the highly-competitive environment at Gleason's, others come just to exercise and to fight stress. Kenny Perrin, 29, a stockbroker at FAS Wealth Management in Jericho, N.Y., used to lift weights but he found that incredibly boring.
Now he boxes at Gleason's and is no longer bored. "There's nothing better after a rough day on the job than to come here and hit those punching bags," Perrin said. "By the time you leave here you are whistling and singing out the door."
