Bartenders Find Positive Life Change Through Boxing

MIAMI BEACH, FL — Halie Cintron was playing college basketball at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania five years ago, but now she routinely pulls all-nighters as a bartender in the Free Spirits Sports Cafe not far from the W South Beach hotel.

"I had an opportunity to go try out and play overseas, but I just decided, 'No, I’m going to go into the work life,'" said Cintron, who played for the Warriors between 2010 and 2014 before moving to Florida.

This week, Cintron became one of some 300 bartenders in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas and other U.S. cities who have found positive life change through a rigorous 12-week program in amateur boxing. They wear headgear, use 16-ounce boxing gloves and finish the program with an official amateur fight record recognized by the USA Boxing Association.

"I still play basketball sometimes here and there. But it was nothing on the level of what it was before," she said. "Basically, coming back into this, it just brings back all of my college memories of playing sports and being dedicated to something and basically that determination to make it happen."

Having completed the three-month training program, which was paid for by the Bartender Boxing Organization, Cintron was one of 10 amateur fighters featured in a three-round sanctioned bout this week at Story Nightclub before nearly 500 cheering hospitality workers, their families and friends.

"I think getting hit in the face is not a normal thing. I don’t think it’s normal for anybody," she acknowledged. "For me, it’s just been like moving and keeping my hands up. It’s very detailed. As much as I think that I’m in shape, it’s almost like you’re never in shape — because every single workout, you have to work yourself until you can’t go no more. That’s the same way that a fight is."

Cintron not only won her match against Natalie Rosa Garcia of Redbar and Sweet Caroline, but she and her fellow winners also each earned trips to the Cazadores tequila headquarters in Mexico.

"The first two weeks, it absolutely sucked," she recalled of her six-times-per-week training regimen. "You were sore. You were tired, all of those things. Now, I think I'm just at a point that I would do it all over again."

Cintron lost 11 pounds ahead of her fight and had to change her diet at one point to keep from losing too much weight.

Program Fills Void

Raj Nagra founded the Bartender Boxing Organization three years ago after recognizing his lifetime passion for boxing could fill a need in the bar business, where he worked for 25 years.

Bacardi's Cazadores brand loved the idea so much that it provided funding for the Bartender Boxing Organization, which recently funded its first community boxing gym in Compton, California, and plans to donate a total of $50,000 to charities this year.

"It started out as something where we wanted to promote health and wellness for the bartender community," said Chris Ha, senior brand manager for Cazadores. "It's sort of a transformational journey for them where we actually take them out of the bars and into the ring."

Nagra said boxing kept him balanced throughout the years. Upcoming bartender fight cities include San Francisco, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

"Boxing was always a way to find a balance in my life. It was one of the things I did in terms of sport that kept me in check," he told Patch. "I knew that it would have the same impact on people in our industry."

He said boxing adds much-needed discipline to the lives of bartenders at a time when one in three people in the industry suffers from some form of mental disorder and when the hospitality industry overall suffers high rates of substance and alcohol abuse.

"You have everything you need to make the wrong decisions," he said. "I don't think there's a sport like boxing out there that can turn people's lives around as quickly as it does, as quickly as this program does."

He said boxing is such a demanding sport that it requires discipline to succeed, leaving little time for other pursuits.

"How that translates into them being better human beings, being better people at work: They’re not showing up hung over. Their habits are better. They have a positive impact on people around them," he said. "It's getting out of bed earlier. It's not drinking. It's giving up smoking. It's eating better, looking after your weight, weighing in every week, showing up ever week and being part of a team."

Ryan Prez, who served as a referee and one of the judges at the boxing event in Miami Beach, told Patch that the bartenders did pretty well for people new to the sport.

"For their level of experience, they're definitely doing good," he said. The bartenders were judged on the same standards by which more-experienced boxers would be judged.

"Whoever landed the most punches, whoever came forward," Prez said. "Who threw more punches? Who didn't get hit? Who had better footwork? Who had more ring generalship?"

From Bartender To Boxer

David Martinez took boxing lessons when he was 7 years old, but now most of his time is taken up making cocktails at Topgolf in Doral and Agave Azul.

"It was exciting," said Martinez, who defeated Richard Mejia from the Broken Shaker. He often works from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. "I loved the commitment, the goal of working towards something."

Andew Lue, a bartender from The Sylvester in Miami, said the transition from bartender to boxer was not an easy one. He defeated Tyler Ridgeway of The Standard.

"People don't punch you in the face when you are a bartender," he said. "This is the lightest I've weighed since I left high school — 22 pounds (lost) in three months. It was hard."

He said he had an 11 a.m. training every Wednesday leading up to the fight. "Every Tuesday, I would work late so I didn't go home," he said. "I just stayed the night at a different friend's house, drove to practice and then finally went home the next day."

The commitment was even more difficult for him because he has a wife and children. His wife was in the audience to cheer him on.

While he won his fight, Lue did go down during one exchange. "I crossed my legs when I shouldn't have, and he caught me at the right time. It was a good, well-timed punch," he said. "It's not like I got shoved or knocked out or anything like that."

Other winners on the night included Pricilla Verona of Exchange Nightclub who defeated Suzelle Reyno of Scapegoat, and Mohamed Gasmi of Baoli who bested Adam DelGiudice of Sweet Liberty.

Nagra said one bartender from Portland lost 40 pounds during her training earlier this year and recently won a Golden Gloves competition.

"She was so timid, she would cry at the thought of sparring," Nagra recalled. "She went on to win her fight."

Cintron's barmates and family members held up cutouts of her face and broke into rhythmic chants of "Halie, Halie, Halie" during her fight.

"I think I was more anxious than anything," Cintron recalled after her bout. "Once you are in there, you hear everybody yelling your name, and it gets you all worked up."