It’s pouring rain in the Bronx. Inside, above an empty garage near the East River, I watch on as abuelitas and cauliflower-eared tough guys set up chairs, prep catering trays full of taquitos, and build a boxing ring from sailing rope and martial arts punching bags. Chase pulls me aside for a last-minute update: One of his fighters has “broken his dick.”
“This is the seventh or eighth time,” Chase tells me, laughing to himself in disbelief.
The injury threatens to upend a long night of unsanctioned boxing matches, which Chase organizes, promotes, and even sometimes referees himself. He created Knuckle Up Fight Klub (Knuckle Up, for short) as a way for men and women from across New York City’s five boroughs and beyond to settle their issues or develop their pugilistic skills in the ring. In doing so offering them an outlet away from the gun violence that has long plagued the city’s northernmost borough.
Though violent crime is at record lows in New York, the Bronx has long been the city’s worst borough for gun violence, in 2025 accounting for more than a third of all shooting incidents and victims across the city. Chase thinks boxing can help fix that.
Oliver (left), Chase (center), and Sawfan (right).
“ We try to tell kids guns kill,” Chase says as the night’s crowd starts to pour in. He and his crew are adorned in black shirts with a pink fist emblazoned on the front. He’s wearing leather pants with a wallet chain, and his crisp faux-hawk lined up to perfection. “ Put the guns down and do what we used to do: knuckle up.”
Knuckle Up offers the community two separate but related opportunities, Chase says. The fights give aspiring young boxers, the kind who may go on to have amateur or even professional careers, a showcase for their skills; untrained laymen, on the other hand, the chance to work out their violent urges in a slightly more controlled but far less deadly environment than they may find in the streets. Knuckle Up events will often feature “beef fights,” Chase tells me, where two people are given the opportunity to settle real-world disagreements inside the squared circle.