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BOXING 2016
Lodge 7 First Vice-President Ray “Boom-Boom” Casiano gives a pre- ght pep talk to the CPD boxers.
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shows a lot of guts,” admired Katie Chiczewski Holtkamp, the officer who spearheads the CPD boxing team for the Battle of the Badges. “They work hard and they train hard all year.”
It’s fair to say that the anticipation for this event might have built up all year, and certainly crescendoed on a night that might have been crisp and cold outside but was sizzling in the gym. It was a night to show your pride, which Lodge 7 President Dean Angelo, Sr. led by wearing his “CPD Boxing” jacket, garb that a certain new Depart- ment superintendent eventually donned.
The deciding moment for the boxers seemed to come long before they entered the ring. Prior to the start of the bouts, the CPD team locker room looked like the scene from “Rocky III”, when Rocky begins training for his re- match with Mr. T by walking into Apollo Creed’s old gym. This room was filled with the eye of the tiger.
At that time, Lodge 7 First Vice-President Ray Casiano stepped into the eye of the storm and added some bite with one of his patented speeches of motivation, in- spiration and appreciation. A former amateur boxer of some renown known as Ray “Boom-Boom” Casiano, Mr. Vice-President fired up the CPD boxers with a flurry of his own.
“Understand what you’re going to have to go through tonight,” Casiano implored as the boxers gathered around him. “Get in there, make your punches, protect yourself, score those points and get that win.”
Cano, who was fighting for the first time in the Battle of the Badges, noted how much this pre-fight fervor made a difference.
“One of the good things was that everybody was in
Salvador Cano shows his look of determination as he warms up to ght the rst bout of the night.
there and the camaraderie made you feel at ease,” Cano described. “You wanted to validate everything they were saying in the locker room when you went into the ring.”
Final validation came when the cops were again hold- ing up the trophy at the end, a victory scored on the virtue of winning six of the 10 bouts, scoring more total points and celebrating the only knockout of the night. Former U.S. Marine and 14-year Department veteran Kevin Gib- bons hit his CFD counterpart with a clap of thunder to the solar plexus that buckled him to his knees, a punch that sealed the victory.
Gibbons confided that he was as surprised as the next guy that his jab struck gold and scored the knockout. Af- ter winning in his first BOTB go-round in 2014, Gibbons came in this time with a simple strategy.
“Focus on jab, jab, jab; one-two, one-two,” he explained. “And just get it over with as soon as I can.”
Cruz followed up Cano with a triumph that gave each side two victories each, and that set up the turning point of the event. Mike Mulcahy, the most experienced police officer/boxer, brought seasoning from his more than 50 amateur fights into the ring, and promptly beat his CFD foe, a former Golden Gloves champion, for the third con- secutive year.
“He will fight me every year until he wins,” Mulcahy said. “He came out punching this year, but I think just the combination of my endurance and my movement in the ring allowed me to dodge some of his shots and get an edge.”
First-time fighter Oliver Franklin followed Mulcahy
42 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ MAY 2016
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