Stepping into the ring, he laces up his gloves for another fight. Across him stands a bare-knuckle boxer with a 12-12-0 professional record, Ruben Warr. Moments later, a quick right hand connects to his face – not enough to knock him out, but enough to break his nose.
While visiting his grandmother in Kentucky, junior Hyder Dammad entered an unsanctioned tournament with no official weight classes and no USA boxing oversight. Since he was already in town, Dammad thought he should get some experience in a boxing tournament. Although Dammad won the first two matches, he got physically knocked down in the third round due to Warr’s heavier weight.
“He just wanted to kill me,” Dammad said. “Honestly, he hated me because I said I was from J Prince gym, a big name in boxing and competition.”
After the fight, Dammad underwent a hematoma drainage nose surgery, an operation that took a toll on both his weekly sparring and mentality.
“Ever since I got my nose broken, I’ve been out of it,” Dammad said. “I’ve been taking a lot of losses last month, [but] I’ve been sparring twice a week to get back stamina wise and endurance wise.”
However, Dammad faced his first fight not in the ring but on his middle school campus. Encountering numerous conflicts with his classmates, Dammad decided to start boxing to avoid getting beat up at school.
“The first fight I ever got into made me realize I don’t like fighting,” Dammad said. “I don’t like hurting people.”
Dammad found support however, in his friend Oliver Kelso. The two first met through Kelso’s younger brother, and Kelso soon introduced Dammad to the fundamentals of boxing.
“My first impression of him was that [he] was outstanding and very respectful,” Kelso said. “I liked when we first sparred with each other. It was good work and we played a lot as well.”
As time went on, Dammad started training after school by joining the J Prince Boxing Gym and later moving closer to the Savannah Boxing Club. Gradually, he began using boxing as an outlet and trained through both coaches and independent sparring.
“It’s like a big family,” Dammad said. “I’d be getting coaching, but I had to do a lot more on my own. Obviously you can talk to your coaches, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to leave it to yourself and get better.”
As he continued to spar, Dammad made the switch to a new gym called Savannah Boxing Gym, formerly owned by training legend Willie Savannah. Dammad walked into the gym with goals to improve, as Savannah Boxing Gym had been the training ground for former world champions such as Juan Diaz and Ronnie Shields. It was there that Dammad met Savannah’s wife and boxer of 40 years, Mama Savannah.
“She told me she saw some potential in me, so she wanted to help me,” Dammad said. “I felt like she pressured me to do well.”
Dammad became one of the many boxers Mama Savannah coaches on the weekly, and his determination was evident to Mama Savannah.
“He came to the boxing gym about a month ago looking to improve his skills,” Mama Savannah said. “He’s ready to learn and improve, and I have the pleasure of coaching [him] through more than just boxing but [with] skills that will last them throughout their lives.”
Despite his efforts to spar consistently, however, Dammad faces disapproval from his parents, who worry about his safety when sparring. Their concern increased after Dammad’s nose surgery, making it difficult for Dammad to convince them to let him spar.
“They don’t want me getting hurt,” Dammad said. “[And] I am not able to compete as much as I want to. There would be times when they won’t let me go to training or they won’t let me do something. Because of that, I haven’t been able to get as good as I want to get, [and] for a while I couldn’t be as consistent because they wouldn’t let me go to the boxing gym.”
His parents’ disapproval has weighed down on Dammad many times, proving to be a struggle he faces frequently. However, Dammad finds support in Kelso, who has talked to Dammad’s parents multiple times to encourage them about letting him box and knows the significance of boxing to Dammad.
“I convinced them that if he was with me he would get the right preparation in order to become a great fighter,” Kelso said.
When he can, Dammad focuses on his boxing training after school and spars around two to three times a week. Dammad usually faces much bigger and stronger opponents during his training in order to prepare his body for the substantial amount of punches he will encounter in future matches. For example, he sparred with a “guy named Josiah” in order to fulfill this goal.
“He was like 200 pounds, and I sparred with these guys, and they’re these giant guys and were hitting me hard and everything,” Dammad said. “It was really memorable because I got beat up a bit but I was actually putting beat.”
After intense training days like these, Dammad recovers through extra sleep and a balanced diet that gives him the physical and emotional preparation he needs, especially when feeling nerves before facing an opponent.
“I eat a lot of gas station food, but when I have to I’ll eat chicken and rice and [drink] a lot of water,” Dammad said.
For Dammad, practice also means learning the technical side of boxing and understanding the specific rules that shapes how he competes, as well as the equipment used when boxing.
“It’s gonna be one minute rounds,” Dammad said. “And you can’t hit in the back of the head, elbow, or knee. You have head gear and 16-ounce gloves, which means there’s more padding in the gloves. You also have a cool mouthpiece [which has] Kool Aid flavoring.”
His preparation ultimately helps him gain the most points to secure wins at each tournament.
“When you’re in amateurs, the more punches you throw, the more points you get,” Dammad said.
This structure has also pushed Dammad to develop strategies to gain more points. His ability to take hits has become one of his approaches in the ring.
“I remember one time I sparred a dude who was 6-foot-3,” Dammad said. “He hit me with a really big right hand. I felt like my head went down, and I [was] stunned for a second, but you have to adapt fast.”
This year, Dammad hopes to take his skills to the next level by spending more time in the gym despite his nose injury. His dedication is evident to those he spars with, including Kelso.
“I think boxing is part of his personality,” Kelso said. “He gets up and gets after it when it’s time to strap the gloves on. He works very hard and that translates into his life outside of boxing as well.”
Dammad plans to keep boxing in the future, letting his passion guide him whether it’s professional or not.
“It’s supposed to just be clean and beautiful,” Dammad said. “You know, that’s what boxing is.”