Amateur Boxing
Sherman Bergman began his amateur boxing career in 1973. He was a member of the Amateur Athletic Union,the Florida Gold Coast Association, the Golden Gloves Association of America and the USA Amateur Boxing Federation.
Bergman trained at the 5th Street Gym in Miami Beach, and the Elizabeth Varrick Gym in Coconut Grove,Florida. He was trained by his father Hyman Hank Bergman from 1973-1979. From 1980-1983, his trainers were Jose Maceo (1980), former pro boxer Eddie Ludlow and Gary Ritter (1981), Isaac Sved (1982), and former World Lightweight Champion Beau Jack (1983). The legendary cornerman Benjamin "Evil Eye" Finkle worked Bergman's corner for two matches.
One of Bergman's early matches was a fight with Phillip Rourke who would go on to a movie career as Mickey Rourke. In Miami,Florida,Rourke climbed off the canvas to knock out Bergman in 31 seconds of the first round.
Sherman Bergman's biggest amateur bout was in 1981 against Larry Byrd in the Southern Regional Golden Gloves in Coconut Grove, Florida. The Miami Herald reported that 600 fans turned out for the bout. In a slugfest which started at the bell, Byrd knocked down Bergman twice to score a TKO victory in 33 seconds. Byrd went on to a professional boxing career.
Bergman worked for a short time as a sparring partner for future World Heavyweight Champion Ken Norton, and heavyweight contender Rodney Bobick at the 5th Street Gym.
Following a 1983 defeat to Willie McGee, Bergman retired from amateur boxing with a record 17 wins and 4 defeats.
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Famous quotes containing the words amateur and/or boxing:
“I have been reporting club meetings for four years and I am tired of hearing reviews of the books I was brought up on. I am tired of amateur performances at occasions announced to be for purposes either of enjoyment or improvement. I am tired of suffering under the pretense of acquiring culture. I am tired of hearing the word “culture” used so wantonly. I am tired of essays that let no guilty author escape quotation.”
—Josephine Woodward, U.S. author. As quoted in Everyone Was Brave, ch. 3, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
“I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing—for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it’s impossible not to see that your opponent is you.... Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.”
—Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)