By Bryan A. Bushemi, Managing Editor

 

When you walk into Windy City Gym, it strikes you as exactly the kind of place you’d expect a fighter like Andrew Golota to train. It’s a classic, old-school boxing “dungeon” where there’s only one purpose: To build warriors; no bullshit. It’s a place of well-used heavy bags wrapped with layers of reinforcing tape, wooden floors marked and worn by the soles of countless pairs of boxing shoes. Framed photos and picture “collages” of hundreds of fighters adorn the walls. Some are faded with age, others fresh and colorful like the ambitious, young boxers within them. A pair of boxing rings occupies the middle of Windy City Gym and Sam Colonna, the gym’s renowned fight trainer, leans on the upper rope at ringside. Colonna is a compact, no-nonsense man and he oversees the action underway in the ring with a sharp, evaluating stare.

In the center of it all, the object of Colonna’s expert scrutiny, is Andrew Golota. Circling like gladiators in the Coliseum, the powerful but graceful Golota and his sparring partner, Chicago heavyweight pro Chris Riley, bob, weave, and trade shots that sound like axes slashing into trees. And that’s what these big men resemble. Shorter, darker, Riley (whose last fight was a 4th-round KO of journeyman Eric French) is like a mobile ebony wood stump. Taller and paler, Golota has legs like tree-trunks and bulging, sweat-sheened arms that seem chiseled out of polished white oak.

The fighters move in, throwing, and clinch, before Golota breaks free with a pounding triple jab—bam-bam! BAM!—that lands harder each time and stands Riley back on his heels. It’s the kind of jackhammer sequence meant to set up a thunderbolt overhand shot that has only one outcome. You can tell Golota wants to throw it; his body ripples and he sets his feet to fire it. But he doesn’t. This is only sparring. No doubt, he’s saving that punch for another opponent, WBO Heavyweight Champion Lamon Brewster, who Golota faces for the title in the United Center on May 21. On that day, if he lands it, Golota would finally have a world championship belt around his waist.

Aside from the obvious glory, money, and acclaim that come with such a victory, what drives Golota to continue fighting even now? At 37, he’s been a pro since not long after coming to Chicago, almost 15 years earlier. Even for the big heavyweights, that’s getting up in age. Still, despite compiling a 38-5-1 record (31 KOs) against some of the best competition over the past decade and a half, Golota isn’t satisfied. Simply, he hasn’t accomplished as much as he wanted, as much as he knows he can. He craves a title. More accurately, all the titles. Golota believes he can unify the titles currently in play on the world heavyweight championship stage. He’s part of promoter extraordinaire Don King’s tournament to crown an undisputed king of this most storied division. And many who are knowledgeable in the sweet science think Golota could be the one to do it.

But the old knock on Golota, that 500-pound, bare-knuckled gorilla that the media has saddled him with every time he steps into the ring, is that he’s wild, an undisciplined fighter, a dirty fighter. A bad guy. But is he really? When asked about that, a subject you’d expect him to be sick to death of by now, Golota actually smiled and cracked an unexpected joke.

“If anyone says I’m a dirty fighter, let them know that I take a shower at least twice a day, you know,” he laughed. “Sometimes even three times.” And this humor, although unexpected by many, isn’t forced. Outside the ring, Golota’s surprisingly relaxed and open, not at all the mirthless brute he’s been painted as.

Why shouldn’t he be? He’s just a guy who happens to make his living in a boxing ring, not a violent ogre. As for what he’s doing to erase the unfair label of not fighting clean, Golota says all he can do is go out and perform the best way he knows how—hard, tough, and with a will to win—and let that speak for itself. Golota’s a straight-up guy, it seems, and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe he’s too straight-up, and not a sneaky fighter who tries to slip it past the ref like many other boxers will. Having seen most of his fights, that’s the way it strikes me.

So, what about Golota being undisciplined—talented but unfocused is what many say about him. Well, how’s this to disprove that assessment: That textbook triple jab he threw earlier; Sam Colonna told me that it was after eleven rounds of sparring. Against a fresh opponent, no less. How often do you see a heavyweight even throw a triple jab, much less that deep into sparring? Usually, you don’t. So, how’s that for discipline?

That dedication comes from a few things these days, according to Golota. Flashing some more of that lighter side, he chuckled, “I don’t wanna get beat up in the ring, you know? I’d be in a lot of trouble if I didn’t focus.” All joking aside, he credits Colonna with keeping him on track. They understand each other; Colonna having trained Golota since he started fighting in the U.S. Colonna demands a lot from Golota and is ever vigilant. “I can’t cheat him; he won’t let me. He knows what I’m capable of doing,” Golota insists. Watching Golota work under Colonna’s hawk-like supervision, pushing himself, it’s easy to see that locked-in intensity and the skill that springs from it.

It’s what he’ll take into the ring facing Brewster and whoever else is in his path to boxing immortality. Against any opponent from this point on, Golota hopes to avoid the controversy of his fight with WBA king John Ruiz, where he delivered a convincing performance, yet still inexplicably lost a decision for the title. Golota maintains that the only thing he did wrong in that fight was not finishing Ruiz definitively.

“It’s always better to win by a knockout,” he said, “but I’ll respond however I need to win.”

Beyond Brewster, Golota said he’d maybe go after Ruiz again, who regained the WBA title he lost at the end of April due to James Toney being stripped of it as a result of a positive steroids test. The toughest and most exciting fight, Golota thinks, would be Hasim Rahman, who is currently scheduled to fight Vitali Klitschko for the WBC title in September, barring any further delays due to Klitschko recovering from surgery and back problems.

Working with Don King, Golota hopes to fight every four or five months in his title quest, knowing that despite being as on his game as he is, he doesn’t have many years left in the sport. At that rate, that puts a timetable of about 18 months to two years for Golota to fulfill his goal of unifying the heavyweight crown. After that, he’s hoping to retire at the top in his adopted hometown, living out what he calls a “dream come true” by leaving the titles in Chicago. Once he’s out of the fight game, Golota wants most of all to focus on his family.

“They’re the most important thing in my life,” he said, smiling again, warmly. “I’ve got two beautiful children who need their father.” His smile widens even further as he says that.

It’s especially at moments like that where it’s obvious that although Andrew Golota’s tough-as-nails and a badass in the ring, he’s not a bad guy by any stretch. Not a bad guy at all.