General admission is $75, with VIP ringside seats available for $150<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cA lot of people are excited,\u201d said Liz Cane, CEO of River City Promotions, which has been putting together fights in the area for three years. \u201cOf course, I’ve had maybe two people that are like, \u2018Oh, wow, we want to see the police get beat,\u2019 and, like, this is not what it’s about.\u201d<\/p>\n
What it is about, said firefighter and boxer Shalin Shah, is giving back to the city they serve. After college and a stint with Henrico County\u2019s fire department, he\u2019s been working for his hometown for four years. He\u2019s currently assigned to Truck Company 6 and Fire Station 14 in North Side.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love being a city fireman,\u201d he said. \u201cI love the city. And then I had a passion for boxing, and I really enjoyed that in my free time, and I made a lot of friends through that, including Eric.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eric is Eric Ash, Cane\u2019s husband and the owner of Vintage Boxing Gym, where Shah has trained for the past year. After practice one day, Shah took Ash aside and told him how he had seen police and firefighters box for charity in Wichita and New York City. Plans to bring these fights to Richmond took off from there. The Richmond Firefighters Association and Richmond Coalition of Police unions then helped Shah find potential boxers, and five men from each service branch signed on. Next came training, which began in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the people who are participating had no prior experience at all, and [their preparation is] credit to Eric,\u201d Shah said. \u201cHe let us use the gym and offered free training for months to get everybody prepared for the event.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they first came in,\u201d Cane said about the boxers, \u201cthey were kind of nervous, didn’t know what they were getting into. And now they’re all about it. They’re in the gym all the time. It’s so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
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More fights could be on the way. Shah said he had to turn away servicemembers from other localities so that he could focus on an event exclusively benefiting Richmond.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely, down the line I would include public safety from all around the metro area,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the interest is there, and I think the organization is there with public safety in the region, and with the help of Vintage and Eric and Liz, I think that we definitely have the tools and frame of reference of what it takes to put on an event like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The event has the backing of the higher-ups, too. In a joint statement, Fire Chief Jeffrey Segal and Police Chief Rick Edwards each praised the fighters\u2019 dedication and the charitable nature of the event. Shah said both are planning to attend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’ve been really supportive,\u201d he added. \u201cBut it was really through the unions and the people on the ground that made it happen. And credit to all the members of the police department and fire department that gave up their free time to train and participate in something like this because, at the end of the day, we wouldn’t be able to put something like this on without them and their hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n
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