Oklahoma filmmaker Michael Zubach was looking for a formidable Sooner State sports story to share.
Mere moments after meeting Oklahoma City boxing coach Nikki Burleson in person for the first time, he knew he'd found one.
"There's a camaraderie and just a family aspect this gym has. ... I really wanted to show that togetherness: You'll see in scenes where these kids are supporting each other when they're in the ring; they're in their corner at the national tournaments," Zubach said. "There's a bond that was was really special."
Over the past 10 years since Burleson took over as owner, South OKC's Rival Boxing Gym has produced five national champions, eight runners-up and four bronze medals.
"The kids have everything to do with it. Keeping them off the streets, keeping them out of trouble, just seeing the the difference that the gym, me and my other coaches make in their lives, it's just very rewarding for me," she said.
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"You'll be in some gyms and in some sports where one kid is having a lot of success and getting a lot of attention, and sometimes that will bring out jealousy and envy — and a kid ends up leaving the gym or doesn't want to be a part of that. But I guess the family atmosphere and togetherness that we create, through the way that we train and through the way that we do things at the gym, just evolved. ... They all support each other."
An athlete himself, Zubach tells the story of Rival Boxing OKC in his short documentary "Built Different," which had its world premiere in June at OKC's deadCenter Film Festival.
The short film will make a second Sooner State stop on the festival circuit when it screens at the annual Circle Cinema Film Festival July 11-15 at the nonprofit Circle Cinema movie theater in Tulsa. "Built Different" will show at 3 p.m. July 13 as part of the documentary shorts block.
“The festival celebrates the best new films made in, by, and featuring Oklahomans,” said Circle Cinema Film Festival Director Kerry Wiens in an email.
How did a professional boxer turn her gym into a 'safe haven' for young athletes?
A lifelong "sports guy," Zubach has directed several OKC Thunder short films that have premiered at the deadCenter Film Festival, including this year's short documentary "Bismack."
Last February, he set out to pursue his own independent film project, so he started searching in local newspapers and on Google for powerful sports stories that he could tell, eventually coming across a feature on one of Burleson's champion boxers.
"So, I reached out to Nikki on Facebook and said, 'Hey, I'd love to come by and talk to you about producing a documentary,'" said Zubach, who also has worked for Fox Sports and ESPN.
"We met up, and I think within the first 10 minutes of talking with her about the kids, their backgrounds, the success of the gym, her background, I just knew that this was going to be the story."
A decade ago, Burleson was a 28-year-old professional boxer with a winning record and no plans to become a coach. Then, she learned that the owner of the gym she had been training at for about six months wanted to shut it down.
"I couldn't let that happen because I knew the impact that it had on the community and the impact that it had on the kids. So, I decided to keep it open, basically rebuilt it around six kids," she recalled during an interview at the deadCenter Film Fest.
"It was a little bit of a struggle in the beginning, being a woman in a male-dominant sport. But I just put my head down and kept working and decided, 'I want to be there for these kids, and I want to take these kids somewhere.' And it just took off from there."
In 2014, she opened Rival Boxing OKC, formerly Azteca Boxing, in the alley behind SW 25 and Hudson Avenue in the Historic Capitol Hill District.
"This gym is located in the back alleyways of South OKC, which is home to a lot of gang violence and crime. A lot of the kids grow up in this environment. So, she talked to me about this being a safe haven for them, to be away from that temptation and a place to go after school. What they're doing can maybe provide more of a moral compass to them and a way to be successful even outside the gym," Zubach said.
How does the documentary short 'Built Different' showcase Rival Boxing OKC's success?
With their love of sports in common, Zubach and Burleson quickly bonded as he set out to make the short documentary. He ultimately decided to showcase the success of Rival Boxing OKC by focusing on Burleson, fellow coach Juwan Cubit and three of their young contenders: Brandon Noriega, a hard-working 14-year-old wunderkind; Eric Valencia, who left his hometown in Garden City, Kansas, to train at the Oklahoma City gym; and Mike Fitzpatrick, who was homeless in high school and continues sleeping in his car while pursuing his passion for boxing.
"Some of these kids come from broken homes, single-parent homes. Some of their parents have been deported. Some of their parents have been in gangs and in prison, and so I am more than just a coach. I've gone to parent-teacher conferences, because a kid's going to get a zero if a parent doesn't show up for a parent-teacher conference, but the parent only speaks Spanish," said Burleson, a former soccer player at Southern Nazarene University.
"I've gone to sporting events, birthdays, funerals — unfortunately — court dates. ... It's not odd for me to get a call at midnight or two o'clock in the morning that they need something or they just need somebody to talk to."
Along with teaching them the fundamentals of boxing, she works to provide the young athletes with structure and support, while instilling toughness, discipline and endurance.
"Some of my kids, they've never had that sense of belonging, or that support. That's what they're craving; that's what they need. So, you see a lot of them completely turn their lives around, because they have that one person that's their rock that they know is going to be there for them 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no matter what, through the good times, through the bad times," Burleson said.
Although he found it challenging to take on a solo project as director, producer and editor, Zubach said he's happy with how the 20-minute short turned out. He was thrilled to debut it at deadCenter, especially for the sake of Burleson's band of young boxers.
"I wanted them to have the experience of dressing up and going into the theater and seeing themselves on a big screen. It's like, 'We can make it, and our dreams can become reality,'" Zubach said.
Between the short doc's world premiere at OKC's deadCenter Film Festival and upcoming screening at Tulsa's Circle Cinema Film Fest, Noriega, the teenage boxer featured in the short, won his fourth National Junior Olympics Championship. The filmmaker said he can imagine adding on to "Built Different" at some point.
"We might have plans to make it longer one day," Zubach said. "I think there are more great stories to tell, and it's inspiring."
TULSA'S CIRCLE CINEMA FILM FESTIVAL
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