Boxing Behind Bars

What happens when you put a cellblock full of thugs in a padded ring? They punch the shit out of each other--and one emerges a pro.

He calls himself the Black Rhino, and I'm not arguing. He's 6'2'', 220, dark-skinned, pure muscle. When his half-buttoned shirt blows open in the Louisiana breeze, I spot the head of a rhino tattooed on his right pec. Clifford Etienne could kill me with one fist, and he's got tow. I've seen him fight, and he throws punches with the ferocity of a prison-yard brawler.

He's not far from one. At the age of 18, while hanging out with friends in Lafayette, Louisiana, Etienne pulled a gun on a man and demanded money. When the victim resisted, Etienne shot him in the arm. Earlier that summer he had taken two men at gunpoint to a soybean field, forced them to strip and robbed them of $1000 and a gold watch. A high school senior with Division I football talent, Etienne couldn't explain his crimes except to say he wanted to prove his toughness. The judge gave him 40 years.

It was in prison that Etienne took up boxing. (He's featured in Simeon Soffer's documentary Fight to the Max, from which most of the images on this page were taken, and at far right defeating Lawrence Clay-Bey.) Louisiana has a unique rehabilitation program in which inmates square off in monthly officiated three-round fights. Some wardens open their doors to locals, who pay three bucks for an evening filled with a dozen or more Spartacus-style bouts. Etienne became known for bruising torsos, busting noses and handing out concussions. He throws 100 punches per round, twice the norm for a heavyweight but right in line with how you fight in the pen. Lifers still talk about the fact that Etienne twice soundly beat the much-larger Stacey Frazier (distant cousin of Joe's). ''I'd step into the guys and let 'em have it,'' the Rhino says. ''I figured I would fight my way out of jail.''

Paroled in 1998 after serving 10 years, Etienne has since gone 22-1 as a pro, with 15 knockouts. His one defeat came in March 2001, when a punch to the ear threw off his equilibrium and a weaker fighter knocked him to the canvas seven times in eight rounds. Following the loss, the Rhino began training with Jack Mosley, father and trainer of welterweight champ Shane Mosley. He was scheduled to fight again in February and has two bouts remaining on a three-fight, $1 million deal with Showtime.

Louisiana's prisons are home to hundreds of amateur boxers who dream of following Etienne into the pros. The likelier scenario is that they will die behind bars or be released to frustration. They lack the discipline, character and/or (concluded on page 152) Boxing (continued from page 96) talent for the money ranks. But doing time, that hardly matters. The ring is salvation. It's a place where you can master your violence and show off your wiles. Wardens use the sport for crowd control. Only the best-behaved prisoners gain access to the weight room and the ring.

Prison boxing began at Angola and dates to at least the Forties. A photo survives of an early match: Two cons in regulation khakis square off inside four pieces of twine laid on the prison yard. In 1987 the state formed the Louisiana Institutional Boxing Association. ''Before LIBA, we used inmate judges,'' says commissioner Pat Kilcrease. ''Because they lived in the general population, the only way they'd let a visiting fighter win was by knockout.''

This past summer I drove 150 miles northwest of New Orleans for a Thursday fight night at Avoyelles State Prison in Cottonport. Elayn Hunt, Dixon and Angola each had bused a team of a dozen prisoners (the fights rotate each month among LIBA facilities). After changing from shackles to shorts, the fighters line up along the gym walls, occasionally nodding to buddies but not talking much and definitely not passing anything hand to hand.

As the inmates lace up their gloves and shadowbox, officials from each prison seclude themselves to schedule the card. Each one bluffs for his fighters, trying to match them up with slightly weaker opponents by emphasizing past losses and lackluster punches. In the gym, prisoners unfold steel chairs around the ring. One side fills with Avoyelles inmates dressed in blue jeans and white T-shirts. The other side is a ragtag crowd of locals. ''You figure that if these guys know how to do anything, they know how to fight,'' one guy tells me as he devours a hot dog. ''You never know when you'll see the next Rhino.''

Each prison has its own twist on fight night. At Angola, the entertainment between fights is provided by kick-dancing drag queens and effeminate punks. At Dixon, a prisoner band livens things up with Delta blues and Queen covers. Avoyelles welcomes the fighters with a spread of supermarket delicacies. But nobody comes for the beefsteak. The killers, rapists, drug dealers and thieves are looking for respect--the kind you earn with fists, not a gun. ''You make a bad showing and those guys will dog you to death, tell you you're a piece of shit,'' says a pompadoured guard who, like several other bystanders, claims to have discovered Etienne. ''If you lose you want to go down in style, fighting hard.''

Inside the twine, each inmate dispatches as many uppercuts as he can manage. There is no duck-and-shuffle, no rope-a-dope. Some of the prisoners show more smarts than others, but for the most part it's a free-for-all that ends with both fighters hugging each other in grudging admiration or, more likely, relief. Most tell me their induction into organized boxing came after winning brawls among the general population.

The odds of these men boxing professionally are long, even for those with talent. Donald ''Pepper Red'' Sylvas is hoping to win back the homemade light welterweight belt he says he voluntarily gives up so he has the challenge of regaining it. ''After getting released the first time, I went 21--0 as a pro, against the hardest fighters you ever saw,'' he says. Asked how he ended up back in the joint, Pepper Red looks puzzled, as if he doesn't understand it himself. ''I fell out with my manager, couldn't get fights. I got into armed robbery, holding up banks. I'm here now till 2016. But I want to get out and go to work for Billy.''

That's Billy Roth, a sharply dressed, ruddy-faced promoter and trainer who drives an emerald-green Cadillac and says he earns his living as a private investigator. He may be the one man who deserves credit for grooming Etienne. ''I'd been waiting all my life for somebody like Clifford,'' he tells me at ringside. ''I took care of him while he was in jail--gave him money, visited him, talked to him--and I had him come and live with me. I hooked him up.''

Roth is officiating a few bouts, keeping an eye open for prospects, and telling me about how treacherous life behind bars can be. ''You can get killed for a pack of cigarettes,'' he says. ''You lend somebody a pack and he has to pay you back two.'' When one promising fighter didn't get his two packs, he picked up a weight and slammed a guy in the head. The stunt cost him three more years on his sentence, as well as his boxing privileges.

A world away, an ex-con cruises New Orleans in a black Stingray. Rap music blares from the Rhino's trunk, which is filled with speakers. We stop at a French Quarter joint. Everyone in the place knows Etienne (he and the shucker did time together), so no one blinks when he orders a dozen oysters, shrimp etouffée and a sirloin, all brought to the table at once. I notice a tiny barbell piercing his tongue. He talks about building a fine house in the countryside for his wife and two young daughters.

I ask Etienne if his prison experience has helped him in the ring. ''Focus is everything,'' he says. ''I learned to focus in a place where you have men fighting over seats, guards harassing you, lots of distractions. If you can get in shape in prison, you can do it anywhere.'' He smiles. ''When I fight now, I know I'll get paid, win or lose. But prison boxing was fighting for pride, and a guy who fights for pride will fight to the death.''

''I fell out with my manager, couldn't get fights. I got into armed robbery. I'm here now till 2016.''