For love of the fight: Battlezone Boxing owners cultivating welcoming culture

GILFORD — Jared Marshall said he suffered from a lack of direction as a young person, but found what he needed the first time he laced up a pair of gloves.

“I went to a boxing gym and never left,” Marshall said. He was 16 that fateful day, growing up in Haverhill, Massachusetts, invited to the sport by a local boxing coach, perhaps because of the shiner around Marshall’s eye. Through boxing, Marshall discovered discipline, structure, focus and a healthy social group.

Marshall kept up with the sport, regularly training at Haverhill's Shoe City Boxing even after he moved to the Lakes Region seven years ago.

Then, about a year ago, he went on his first date with Ruth Benitez. Today, the two are engaged to be married and are already coupled as business partners, owners of Battlezone Boxing, the only pure boxing gym in the Lakes Region.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since I moved up here because there was nothing,” Marshall said. “It was the right thing to do, bring the sport up here. In Massachusetts, there’s one or two gyms per city. Up here there’s nothing within 100 miles.”

Marshall left his job with a local drain services company and Battlezone Boxing opened its doors on Nov. 16, 2024. The gym is already building its own culture and core of athletes. Marshall wasn’t the only one itching for a local fight — once word got out on social media, they started seeing athletes, passionate about the sport of boxing, coming from all over central and northern New Hampshire.

Some of those people are looking to get into the ring, others are looking for a workout in the kind of atmosphere a boxing gym cultivates.

“There’s people that just like to work out, want to be around people who are boxing, but don’t want to box, and that’s fine,” Marshall said, adding he also has clients who aspire to bring home a belt. “Everyone’s welcome.”

Battlezone is especially welcoming of young people. Remembering how important the sport was for his own development, Marshall hopes Battlezone will become a place where youth, including some who might be considered at-risk, find something they’re so passionate about it becomes their new lifestyle, influencing how they behave in school and outside of the gym, what they put into their bodies and with whom they choose to associate.

“The kids that come in, they love it from Day 1,” Benitez said.

Boxing demands a healthy lifestyle, which will bring with it benefits far beyond the boxing ring. But for those with the drive to fight, there’s a world of competition waiting. Battlezone Boxing is affiliated with USA Boxing, both Marshall and Benitez have become trained as officials to judge fights, and they hope to create a team based in this gym at 131 Lake St. which will make a name for itself at events around New England and beyond.

“This is a traveling sport, it is an advancing sport,” Marshall said.

“There’s a lot of opportunities for kids to get out there and start competing.

"It feels good to be able to get into the ring and do your thing, with a couple hundred people watching you.”

Yet there’s a lot of work that needs to be done before an athlete, especially a young one, faces their first opponent.

“A lot of moms call and ask, ‘Is he going to get banged up?’

"No, no one’s going to touch them until both me and the parents agree they’re ready,” Marshall said. It can take months of training, a different amount for each athlete, before they are ready for their first bout.

This winter, Battlezone will work on developing what Benitez calls the “fellowship” of athletes — currently spanning ages from 8 to mid-50s — and will work on arranging their first event, a multi-bout contest to take place on Father’s Day Weekend.

He thinks such an event will help him to make the same kind of impact his coach had on him, when he was a wayward 16-year-old with a black eye.

“The coach said, 'Come down to the boxing gym. You get humbled really quick, and on the other hand, you’re going to learn a skill that you’re never going to be perfect at,'” Marshall said.

“I want to reach out to kids and show them there’s more to life than boozing and going out and partying.”