He wanted to remind the boxers this was their “home” – albeit a busy one – and not just some junk room to toss their duffle bags, head gear and hand wraps in.
Once the constant thumping on the heavy bags came to a halt – as did the whirring jump ropes and the rhythmic cadences on the speed bags – and the combatants who’d been sparring in the elevated ring crawled back through the ropes, Meza-Cuadra was surrounded by dozens of boxers.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, their shirts damp with sweat, their breathing slowing, their faces bearing the differing features of people from all parts of the world.
With a grin, he began half-jokingly: “I don’t know what language I should be speaking to you: English, Spanish, Uzbek, Arabic, Turkish, Ukrainian, or something else.”
He wasn’t exaggerating.
Forget all the hoopla in late May at the Arcade and those other spots cordoned off in downtown Dayton.
The real NATO summit – one that goes on night after night after night – is at this busy fight club on Marco Lane in Centerville.
Along with a rockin’, high-decibel winter night of Flyers basketball at UD Arena or taking in another night of sellout Dayton Dragons baseball at Day Air Ballpark, this is my favorite sports destination in the Miami Valley.
It’s not just that I like boxing and this is the epicenter of the sport in this area, but it’s for what this scene represents.
This is the real story of immigration in this country, not the fake news scare tactics some politicians are preaching for their own personal gain while destroying other people’s lives.
Looking around the gym on this night, I saw boxers – some of them young kids, some in their 20s, a few even older – who not only were from Miamisburg, Centerville and East Dayton, but Ukraine, Mexico, Haiti, Palestine, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Egypt and a few more countries.
Saturday afternoon – when DMC hosts Summer Fist, a 20-bout amateur card beginning at 1:30 – there will be boxers from at least six nations representing the gym.
As Fatma Hanafa – a manufacturing engineer in Moraine who was born in Egypt, moved to the U.S. when she was six months old and graduated from Centerville High – once told me:
“Our gym has lots of different religions and different cultures and we all come together and encourage each other to do better and to be better.”
The diversity of the gym is celebrated, said Murodjon Eshnazarov, a 20-year-old computer science student who graduated from Kings High School after coming from Uzbekistan in 2021.
“Look up there at the flags,” he said, pointing to a row of flags hanging near the top of the gym, close to the ring.
The eight flags displayed there represented the United States, Peru, Uzbekistan, Scotland, Mexico, Ukraine, Palestine and Guatemala.
Meza-Cuadra said when one of his boxers wins a championship, he asks them to bring in the flag of their homeland and he’ll hang it up in the prestigious row.
He once claimed the gym may be the most diverse boxing gym in the nation.
Wednesday night he said he figured boxers from close to 80 nations have, at one time or another, come through the doors of the gym that first opened at another site in 2016.
‘Made in God’s image’
I don’t know if that’s hyperbole of not, but on this night there sure was a colorful mix of boxers in the gym,
The best known was Andrew Zammitt, the hard-punching middleweight who attended Hamilton, Miamisburg and Dixie high schools and Wayne State University before compiling an impressive amateur record and gaining national acclaim.
On September 6, he makes his pro debut in Mexico.
Twice a week in the mornings you’ll even find Amaël L’Etang, the rail-thin 7-foot-1 French star of the Dayton Flyers basketball team, who works out to stay in shape and toughen up.
“He’s not allowed to spar,” Meza-Cuarda said, “If he would have an injury, the coach would be in trouble. But I think this training is helping him.
“I think you’ll see a difference this season.”
L’Etang is not the only basketball player you’ll find here.
Former local hoopers of note, Danny McGeady of Alter High and Cain Doliboa, who was a standout at both UD and Wright State, both work out here.
“The Centerville High women’s soccer team works out here to get in shape for their season,” Meza Cuadra said.
“And then we have Bull over there.”
He was talking about 6-foot-6, 370-pound Jacob Ungruhe, who once starred at Little Miami High then played football at Urbana University and Morehead State. Now 26, he has played for five indoor football league teams including the Sioux City Bandits last season.
He was introduced to boxing by a friend last year and now is a gym regular.
“It’s really nice to be around a bunch of people who have a high level of discipline and work really hard,” he said. “I‘ve really fallen in love with boxing. I really like this place.”
The same can be said of boxers from across the glove.
Looking around the gym you saw Danush Cafti, a 17-year-old Centerville High student from Iran; 18-year-old Sebastian Jean Baptiste, who’s from Haiti and just started classes at UC and Stas Burytlenko, a promising 16-year-old talent whose family came from Odessa Ukraine some 18 months ago.
“His dad ran a security firm and was part of (President Volodymyr) Zelensky’s security detail,” Meza Cuadra said.
Working on a heavy bag next to him was Michael Siciliano, a 26-year-old Westchester firefighter and EMT who lives in Cincinnati, but left the Northern Kentucky gym he’d been training at to be a part of the DMC stable.
Emanuel Bacon, a Wright State student who was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan but is of Guatemalan heritage, summed up the scene when he once told me:
“With us, it doesn’t matter where you’re from. We have similar interests. We’re all just people. So why do we treat others differently?
“We’re all made in God’s image and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
‘You’ll love it’
The gym is the brainchild of Meza Cuadra, who grew up in Lima, Peru, then attended college at the Universidad del Pacifico in Lima and North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. He has an MBA and worked several years in the business world, often as a Latin American sales representative.
Boxing was his love and he fought briefly as an amateur before he started training fighters when he worked here in Ohio.
He’s married to Chef Margot Blondet, who runs the popular local restaurants, Salar and Manna Uptown, and early on he had three Peruvian boxers living in their basement while he trained them, One of them, Alberto Rossel, became the WBA junior featherweight champ.
After opening his gym – which not only is for aspiring ring combatants, but also people young and old who want to get in shape without ever having a match – the place became popular because with him it was about both fist and heart.
“Coach is a really good guy, he doesn’t turn anyone away,” said Brandon Wigginton, who once ran the East Dayton Boxing Gym and now works with a few fighters at DMC.
“Some people are in this business only to make money. He’s in it because he loves what he’s doing and he helps whoever he can.”
That’s the case with 14-year-old Davlat Yunosov, whose family came from Uzbekistan to Mason. He found out about DMC and often had to depend on Eshnazarov for a ride.
Meza Cuadra helped Davlat’s family move closer to the area and then he got Davlat, a freshman at Miamisburg High, a bicycle, so he could ride the mile to the gym every day.
He does that religiously. He doesn’t want to miss.
It’s the same with Bull Ungruhe.
“One of my buddies I went to high school with started coming here and he convinced me, ‘just come once, you’ll love it,” he said.
“I did and I haven’t stopped.”
And when boxers here do stop, many of them find a way to restart again.
Harbi Hamdan came from Palestine to Cincinnati where he was working at a restaurant.
He began boxing secretly at DMC, never telling his parents whom he feared wouldn’t whom he feared wouldn’t understand his pugnacious pursuits.
Last spring his parents had him return to Palestine. His mom and brother stayed there and they wanted him to join them and begin college.
Instead in July he convinced them he needed to return to Ohio.
He said he wanted to go to college here.
But before that, he showed up at the DMC Academy where his Palestinian flag now hangs atop the gym and down below it, his fistic family gave him a welcome home hug.
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