Still no sign of Gate City Boxing ring

It’s been missing for nearly two months, but a Pocatello gym is still holding out hope that someone will return its historic boxing ring.

“You know, to lose something like that is like your wife losing her diamond wedding ring,” Gate City Boxing Club president Rob Chavez said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Just two hours after they’d wrapped up a practice on Jul. 31, someone stole the boxing club’s ring and the trailer it was loaded on from outside the Old Town gym.

Now, months later, Chavez and others are still looking for answers.

“We haven’t got no leads or any clues from the police,” Chavez said. “They’ve been working with us to get the ring back … we have a couple photos of the ring being taken from here, but you know, the pictures are too blurry to get the license plate on who actually owns the vehicle that stole it.”

The ring, which had been part of Gate City Boxing since 1983, was taken right before the start of the fighting season, forcing the gym to rent a ring from the Fort Hall Recreation Department.

“That’s an expense that we’ve never had to have. We’ve never borrowed a ring in 30 years,” Chavez explained, adding that using a different ring hasn’t felt right.

“I’m sitting ringside and I go, ‘this doesn’t feel good.’ You know, ‘this doesn’t feel good to have this ring here at a Gate City Boxing show or a Golden Gloves Boxing show, because it’s not our ring.'”

Chavez said another historic gym, Barry’s Boxing of Las Vegas, had nearly the same exact thing happen to them last weekend.

“I reached out to them. I talked to them and you know, I said I’m going through the same thing right now. I said that I pray that you guys get your ring back, but, you know, it’s been two months for us and we haven’t seen nothing,” he said.

Luckily, people from around the country have offered their support to the gym in an effort to help them get a new ring. Partner Steel of Pocatello is constructing a ring for them which is expected to be completed by the end of October, but it won’t have any of the history that gives the original so much value.

“There’s been several World Champions, National Champions that fought in that boxing ring. For example, Cleveland Corder, Kenny Keene, my brother Ernie, Ernie Chavez, he boxed in that ring,” Chavez, who also fought in that ring, said.

“Just the history of that boxing ring that, you know, you can’t replace a ring.”

Chavez asks that anyone with information or any who’s seen a trailer with red, white and blue poles contacts law enforcement.