Amer Abdallah's American Dream

"In 1996 I fought in Baghdad," recalls Amer Abdallah. "It's so funny to even say it. I fought in Baghdad in '96, after the first Desert Storm, before the second war."

Abdallah, 16-0, and currently the No. 2 ranked cruiserweight kickboxer in the world, is recounting the story of his only loss… ever. On Saturday night, he will face off in a unifying title fight against current world champion, Garreth Richards—a man Abdallah calls "his next victim".

The fight will take place in Abdallah's hometown of Lockport, New York, a small suburb of Buffalo along the Erie Canal. But Abdallah's story, both as a fighter and a man, has its origins in Jordan. His family, originally from Jerusalem, emigrated from Jordan to New York City in the 1970s, and his parents went from running a small grocery store in the Bronx to owning series of McDonald's franchises across the state. One of them was in Lockport. "That's why we ended up moving there."

Abdallah's story is a familiar one for immigrants coming to the United States, and his father's business ascension is, in a nutshell, the American Dream come to life. At least it was in a pre 9-11 world.

"The country [Iraq] was in just absolute shambles, it was heartbreaking to see this country that used to be so rich, so influential, was now in shambles. Now, I carry a dual citizenship; I carry a United States citizenship and I carry a Jordanian citizenship. If they would've known I was a United States citizen, I would've probably never have left that country. Sometimes I look back and think, how stupid was I, for a 3-round fight I could've risked my whole life.

So I went in as a Jordanian, and we ended up fighting there. It was an interesting fight to say the least. I was the heaviest guy on my team, they brought me in at super-middleweight, 168 pounds, and the guy that I was scheduled to fight was 220 pounds. I said to my coach, 'what happened to the weight classes here?' I could've stayed at my weight, which was 178 pounds, and not had to suck 10 pounds in the last 10 weeks and I still would've still been lighter than this guy. Here I am going in 10 pounds under my regular fight weight, and I'm still spotting 30 pounds over my fight weight.

When we went in the ring, I had my regulation 10oz gloves on and I looked over… I mean, it's already rented a lot of space in my mind that this guy's got 40 pounds on me, then I look over and look at his gloves, and I can see his knuckles kind of piercing through. I looked at my coach, I said, 'those aren't 10oz gloves, those are bag gloves, those are like 4oz gloves.' He looked and he said, "yeah, you're right." I said, 'what do you mean I'm right? Do something about it!'

We came out and I tried staring him down as we faced off in the center, and he wasn't buying any of it. First round I was on my feet, I was dancing, I was jabbing, I was moving… I remember hitting him. He moved the wrong way, and I remember hitting him with a straight right hand, it was just flush. And usually when I hit guys like that, they lay down. So I connected with this right hand, WHOP! And then I remember opening my eyes and the referee was on top of me going "…3… 4… 5". And I though, 'what the hell just happened?'

I look over at my corner, and I realize I'm on my back, the look on my coach was like he had just seen his dead grandmother resurrected. He was just looking at me like, "holy shit, you're on your back!" And I was like, 'how did I get here, and why is he at 3? What happened to 1 and 2?'

When we looked back at the tape, I hit him with the right hand and it didn't even faze him, and he hit me with a crushing right hand right overtop of mine and sent me down. But I got back up and I was on a bicycle the rest of the fight, just running away from him, just trying to tag him, and he beat me post to post.

I remember waking up, when I got up and actually came to, after I looked at my coach, I looked up and I saw one of the government officials, he had big cigar in his mouth and he was slowly clapping, and I looked over and I saw a huge poster of Saddam Hussein hanging there, and I thought, "Oh my god." It was just so surreal to me that, here I am in Iraq, people are cheering that I'm down, my coach is scared to death, the ref is already at 3, and I don't even know what happened."

***

This is probably a good time to tell you Amer and I went to high school together. Growing up in Lockport in the '90s, I had little perception of what made someone a Muslim or Jew or Hindu, or anything else besides a Christian for that matter. This may be an indictment on our public school system, but it's also just a consequence of learned behavior. My perception of Amer was formed not by movie plots, or even Desert Storm, but by the fact his family was well-respected within the community.

"It's not like the way it used to be when we were in school," he says. "Every demographic and every age group right now focuses on a race and religion, and this angle of who are you and where are you from. If you go to school right now, it's 'oh, he's a Muslim kid, he's a Jewish kid…' We didn't used to have that."

Make no mistake, racism was prevalent in Lockport when we were kids. Just like it is in any mostly white suburb. But it was binary racism, black and white, mostly a holdover from the civil-rights era. Lockport didn't possess the sophistication to discriminate on such incremental levels as religion. As such, my knowledge of Muslim culture was limited to Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the vague awareness that sometimes Amer wasn't allowed to eat school lunch.

Nor did I have any knowledge of his fighting career outside of his proclivity for standing up for his friends. Apparently, while I was taking art classes and smoking weed, Amer was channeling his aggression in the ring. Already a black belt in traditional Japanese Karate by the time he was in high school, Amer shifted his focus to kickboxing under the tutelage of one of his karate instructors.

"Man, this guy, when he used to come up, he would just light everybody up," Amer tells me. "And I said, 'I want to learn what he does.'"

That instructor was Desmond Price, former New York State kickboxing champ. "Karate was a great foundation for me, a great building block, but kickboxing was really where I wanted to go."

At 6-feet tall and a fit 180 pounds, Abdallah is not necessarily an imposing man, and kickboxing was the ideal fighting to maximize his agility and kicking prowess. "It was a little bit more action, a little more contact, a lot faster paced." Upon graduating from high school, Abdallah earned a kickboxing scholarship from Yarmouk University and left the United States to fight for the Jordanian national kickboxing team. He would return a seasoned fighter, but not before that one loss.

***

"You can't shake hands when your fists are clenched," Abdallah tells me.

They're wise words, if not necessarily the ones you'd expect to be coming from a professional fighter. Like most Muslims living in America in 2015, Abdallah chooses his words carefully. But he is also a man who makes his living beating other men into a bloody pulp, and as such, his diplomacy is often put at odds with the bravado he must exude to succeed in his sport.

"It's unfortunate that ignorance is the predominant characteristic of so many people," Abdallah laments, calling it ironic that Islam has been labeled the culprit. "Islam is nothing but peace, love. I mean, in order to serve Allah, you have to serve your fellow man."

Still, serving your fellow man can prove difficult when that ignorance is coming from your opponent across the ring.

"I had never had anybody use the Muslim/Arab race-card except for one guy, and that was the only opponent that I really disliked," he tells me when I ask if he's had any specific encounters with an opponent.

"He made a lot of racial slurs, he said, 'after I'm finished with you you're going to go back to driving taxi cabs like the rest of your people, and running 7-11's…' It was the only time I ever truly disliked a fighter, and I ended up hurting him bad. Every time I hit him, I hit him with the intentions to hurt him. In the first round I broke a couple of his ribs, he ended up with a punctured lung and I knocked him out."

"I wanted that fight to go on," he admits. "I didn't want to knock him out that early."

It's a story Abdallah reluctantly tells only after I ask him twice, as though recognizing the hypocrisy of a fighter proclaiming peace, and he quickly reminds me that he's not just a Muslim fighter, but a hardworking fighter from Lockport—which is why he's bringing his championship bout against Richards back home.

"The kids look up to a guy who is a professional champion, and a guy who has had ups and down in his career and has persevered and overcame every obstacle in life."

After college, Abdallah returned to Lockport a more seasoned fighter, but didn't immediately pursue a pro kickboxing career. Instead, he followed in his father's footsteps and went into business for himself. Partnering with Price, Abdallah and his instructor rented out the aerobics room in a small downtown gym to offer kickboxing lessons. "For the first six months, it was going great. We had 15-20 students, we thought we were the kings of the world."

What started in that aerobics room of a small gym in the late '90s eventually grew to a partnership that resulted in a 15,000 sq. foot facility. During this time Abdallah also started Lace Up, his own promotions company to help set up fights for the kids training in his gym.

"I sort of put my career on the back burner," he says. "I started focusing on some of the fighters who were coming up. Keep in mind, the majority of our members weren't paying. It was just working with kids, getting them off the streets, after-school programs, things like that. It was amazing, it was probably the best time of my life. We were traveling all over the country together, we were building champions."

Abdallah's first fight as a promoter was held in an abandoned Montgomery Ward store, and in a matter of months was hosting sold-out cards for the fighters he was developing. Looking to add a championship fight to his promotions resume, Abdallah offered his business partner and old teacher Price the opportunity to win back his belt by setting up a match against then-reigning NY State kickboxing champ Frank D'Ambra. A title bout that would provide the ideal marketing opportunity for his fledgling company—the title fight would take place in his hometown of Lockport. A first for the region, it was held at the Kenan Center, a 2500-capacity arena that was also where we had our high school graduation.

D'Ambra knocked out Price 58 seconds into the first round.

"It was like a saw a ghost," Amer admits. "This is my mentor, this is my hero, this is my idol, and he got knocked out with the same technique that he used to be famous for—the spinning back-fist."

"I'll never forget that feeling. I just remember thinking, 'there's no way that Desmond is on his back.' I looked at Frankie and said, 'I want this one back.'

Retribution for his friend was not only a good motivator for Abdallah's professional kickboxing career, it created the necessary drama for the small community to fully embrace him as the hometown hero. Two years after moving into his own facility, Abdallah was set to fight for the State Championship in front of a sold-out Lockport crowd.

Amer won the belt. Then he did it a second time, defending the New York State Championship in a rematch against D'Ambra in front of another sold-out Kenan Arena.

This provided the necessary spark Abdallah needed to shift his focus from his businesses towards a professional fighting career. In 2003, he beat Ronnie Deleon to claim his first national championship, and eight years later he won the WKA United States Light Heavyweight belt by taking out Muay Thai superstar Francois "Bang Bang" Ambang. His legitimacy as a contender solidified, his new hardware even prompted an encounter with the Floyd Mayweather camp.

"I had some business in Vegas, and when I was there I asked Jeff Mayweather [Floyd's uncle and former IBO junior lightweight champ] if he would help me a little bit more with my boxing," Abdallah says. "He looked at me and said, 'c'mon let's go win this world title.'"

The addition of "Jazzy" Jeff Mayweather into Abdallah's camp meant a big boost for his title chances, but it also came with a heavy personal choice. Amer moved his promotions company to Las Vegas to begin training at Mayweather's Boxing Club. This meant selling his Lockport gym.

"I have a business mentality," he says. "When the right opportunity comes, everything's for sale."

With Mayweather by his side, Abdallah defeated European champion James Wells, setting up the fight with Richards and his shot at that world title they set out to achieve upon first meeting.

Abdallah could have staged his upcoming fight with Richards anywhere: Dubai, Vegas, or even the neighboring city of Buffalo, where he would still enjoy a hometown advantage. But the man who went to college in Jordan and competed for that country's national team wanted to take it back to where it all began. "I said, 'I want it in Lockport.' It's where my home is, it's where I'm proud of."

Mayweather takes it one step further. "I actually think he's the Mayor of Lockport!" he jokes. "They have watched him grow from a contender to a world title fight to hopefully a world champion."

Lockport is also 88 percent white, largely Republican, with a median household income right around $40,000 per year. Some 13 percent of the population is below the poverty line, including a staggering 19 percent of children under the age of 18. Hard against the Erie Canal, Lockport has always been an industrial city; first settled by the immigrant laborers who built the canal locks it's named for, later as a shipping corridor between New York City and the steel industry of the midwest, and after that as home to a major GM radiator plant.

But like most cities built on industry in America, Lockport is searching for a new economic identity. It would be easy to point to Abdallah's impact on the community as the counter to the Islamophobia that has washed over much of America in the last decade, especially in communities much like his. That would be too simple of a narrative, however. Still, he's leaving a lasting impression on the community.

"He's made Lockport somewhat of a fight destination," says Brian Smith, a man who works for the actual mayor of Lockport as the city's Director of Business Development. "Obviously, the bigger the event, the bigger economic impact, but with Joe Taylor here as well (WKA heavyweight fighter promoted by Abdallah's Lace Up), there really is a solid fight scene coming out of Lockport and it is certainly a unique asset this city has."

It's not just inside the ring Abdallah's impact is being felt. Last year he brought Mike Tyson to Lockport for a signing, and the Mayweathers made a stop during promotions for the Pacquiao fight. "People were like, 'there's no way that's gonna happen,'" Abdallah says, "And we made it happen."

"I've had ups and downs in my career, and every single hurdle I've come across, every single problem I've ever had, ever single triumph I ever had, through the victory and through the downfalls, my fans have always been with me."

"No matter where I live, Lockport's always home," Abdallah says. "That's my community, that's my people. Through hell or high water, that's what it comes down to: it's my hometown."