We're all fighting for something

Toronto's boxing scene spent years pushing the real stuff to the outskirts. The gyms that respected the sport were tucked away in industrial parks or out of the city entirely. Downtown filled up with brightly lit studios where people hit bags to pop playlists and called it "boxing".

Boxing Coach Ilias El Bouazaoui, Artist Mattias "TheHalfDecent" Halbedl, and Co-founder Greg Allin changed that. They took over a historic space at Queen and Spadina, stripped it back to its bones, and built the downtown core's first uncompromising boxing gym. The parquet floors stayed. The heavy bags went up. The ring went in. And the culture that should have been here all along finally had a home.