Capt. Tyler Thompson, left, of 4th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade; and Pvt. Royal Pierson, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, trade punches during their Fight Night bout on Sept. 12, 2025, at Abrams Physical Fitness Center at Fort Hood, Texas. (Scott Darling/U.S. Army)
AUSTIN, Texas — Pfc. Sativa James entered her first boxing gym at 7 years old, tagging along as her brothers tried the sport. She begged her dad to try it, too.
With a small lie to make James a year older, she got into the gym and discovered where her height and long limbs were meant to be.
“I fell in love with it,” said James, 21, who entered the Army after success on the youth boxing circuit. She won the USA Boxing Youth National Championships in 2019 and 2020 at 154 and 165 pounds, respectively.
Now a unit supply specialist with 1st Battalion, 62nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, her arrival to Fort Hood, Texas, lined up with the post’s revival of boxing — an old Army tradition that disappeared from most bases when the Army centralized its soldier-boxers into the World Class Athlete Program and the post-9/11 wars increased the operational tempo of the force.
Fort Hood will host its third fight night of the year Friday, and James is scheduled to face 1st Lt. Ijeoma Akubueze, from 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment.
“I don’t get nervous anymore,” James said the upcoming fight. “It’s exciting. Everyone’s here to have a good time and see the skills of boxing.”
Pfc. Sativa James trains at No Day Off boxing gym in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 23, 2025. She will compete in a fight night at Fort Hood on Dec. 12, 2025. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
Pfc. Sativa James, right, spars in the ring with LeeAnne Brown, an amateur boxer, at No Day Off boxing gym in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 23, 2025. James will compete in a fight night at Fort Hood on Dec. 12, 2025. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
Pfc. Sativa James, right, and 1st Lt. Sharnae Harmon spar in the ring at No Day Off boxing gym in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 23, 2025. They will compete in a fight night at Fort Hood on Dec. 12, 2025. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
The event grew from a soldier’s comment to Fort Hood’s commander, Lt. Gen. Kevin Admiral, that he’d like to see more boxing equipment on post. The fights were an instant success, with soldiers boxing in front of “sold-out” crowds with thousands more watching online.
Tickets are free, but people lined up hours before the doors opened for the June and September events, maxing out the 2,600-person capacity of Abrams Physical Fitness Center, according to Fort Hood. Friday’s event will also air on television with commentators thanks to local TV station KWTX.
“We’re always on the lookout for bold, exciting ways to bring the Fort Hood community together and in true American fashion, sports remain one of the best ways to do that,” said Amber Pafford, chief of marketing and advertising at Fort Hood Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation. “For 250 years, boxing has pulsed through Army history as a motivating way to keep soldiers sharp and mission ready. Fort Hood Fight Night takes that legacy to the next level. It doesn’t just unite our community; it puts our soldiers’ grit and unstoppable talent on display.”
Friday’s card features seven bouts, contested in amateur weight classes. Each fighter is a soldier representing their unit.
“It’s something different,” said Capt. Yamil Acevedo, active-duty liaison officer for the fight nights and assistant coach. “It’s not like a Best Squad competition. It’s not like a Best Ranger, Best Sappers. It’s individuals going in the ring and being competitive.”
Acevedo fought in the June event and has since coached and trained alongside the roughly 20 soldiers selected through tryouts as part of the “family” of fighters. Outside the gym, he’s the operations and training officer for 15th Brigade Support Battalion.
“You’ll see some of our majors and battalion commanders talking smack to each other in the stands,” Acevedo said. “That’s what we want. We want them to because we want the units to come out and support.”
Capt. Yamil Acevedo, assistant coach for the boxing group at Fort Hood, Texas, watches soldiers in the ring at No Day Off boxing gym in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 23, 2025. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
Capt. Yamil Acevedo, assistant coach for the boxing group at Fort Hood, Texas, tightens boxing gloves for Capt. Tyler Thompson at No Day Off boxing gym in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 23, 2025. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
For decades, the Army employed some of America’s top boxers with each post hosting its own boxing teams and competing with each to hone their skills and showcase talent, said Charles Leverette, boxing coach for the Army’s World Class Athlete Program at Fort Carson, Colo.
“I was on the last team that they had at Fort Hood,” Leverette said. “With war and deployments, we got away from other units and posts participating. … We are in the Army, so we’re soldiers first.”
Leverette credits the Army for launching his boxing career. While assigned to Fort Polk, La., he saw an ad at the gym for an upcoming boxing event and decided to compete. He won a four-day pass to visit home and discovered his life’s work.
He was a member of the World Beaters boxing team at Fort Hood in the late 1990s, until the Army merged all its boxers into the World Class Athlete Program. Leverette served as assistant coach of the Army’s team and for the 2012 U.S. Olympic team. He came home from the London Games to take over as head coach for the Army and retired from active duty three years later.
The Army’s modern boxing tradition dates to the lead-up to World War I, when President Theodore Roosevelt worked with his friend Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood, future chief of staff of the Army, to incorporate one of the president’s favorite sports into military training, said Mickey Phillips, retired Naval officer and a sports and military historian.
Phillips found the military’s first official reference to boxing in the Army’s 1914 Manual for Physical Training. Senior leaders believed boxing and wrestling helped to instill physical aggression in troops, his research found. The physical hits also prepared for the feeling of an explosion during war. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., soon began to incorporate boxing into future officer education and still does today.
“The concussion of bombs exploding, people weren’t ready for that,” Phillips said. “I was blown off my feet in Afghanistan and Iraq. I played nine years of football and it’s the only time I was hit as hard.”
Roosevelt’s influence persisted in the military long after “the war to end all wars.” Up until 2012, the military hosted the Armed Forces Boxing Championship, an Olympic qualifying event featuring service members from all the branches. It ended when international boxing officials decided to remove protective headgear from amateur fights, Leverette said.
Army boxing reached a peak at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, where the service was represented on Team USA by the head coach, the assistant coach and three fighters. Active-duty soldiers Andrew Maynard (light heavyweight) and Ray Mercer (heavyweight) won gold medals, as did former soldier Kennedy McKinney (bantamweight).
Leverette welcomed the return of boxing to Fort Hood, not just for the nostalgia of his own time there, but as the Army’s head coach. He’ll get to see what athletes can do in a real fight before they make the team.
“Just like you’re taking a chance with regular recruiting, you don’t know what you’re getting until they get here,” he said. “Anybody can put on a good show, but do you really have it?”
James said she wants to leverage her fighting at Fort Hood into a tryout for the Army team. She enlisted with that exact goal in mind — and a chance at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, she said.
Capt. Tyler Thompson watches as Capt. Yamil Acevedo, assistant coach for the boxing group at Fort Hood, Texas, demonstrates a workout drill at No Day Off boxing gym in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 23, 2025. ( Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
Capt. Tyler Thompson trains at No Day Off boxing gym in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 23, 2025. He will compete in a fight night at Fort Hood, Texas, on Dec. 12, 2025. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
But the event also offers newcomers to the sport a chance to see if they have what it takes. Friday’s card includes Capt. Tyler Thompson, a battery commander in 4th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery Regiment. He picked up boxing three years ago at age 27.
Juggling command time and training has taken some creativity, he said.
“The sport is so demanding, and the job is so demanding,” Thompson said.
He won his September bout and is eager for this second opportunity.
“It was exciting, it was phenomenal, scary, all of the above,” Thompson said. “When the lights were really blinding, I looked at the front row, and I could always see my mom. That kind of helped me out, helped the nerves, helped calm me. … She’s always been my biggest critic and my biggest coach.”
Since Fort Hood’s first fight night in June, Leverette said he’s fielded interest from other installations looking to join the boxing revival. He’s making plans to host a boxing camp next year and see the talent that is growing organically across the service.
“It’s bigger than just the kids participating. Their battle buddies might be downrange or stationed somewhere else, and they go pick up the Stars and Stripes or the local paper and they go, ‘Man, this is my battle buddy. We went to basic training together.’ So it goes a long way,” Leverette said. “It’s not just that one kid or particular soldier at that post. It’s Army-wide.”
Fort Hood’s Fight Night begins at 6 p.m. Friday. It is available to watch online at https://www.facebook.com/forthoodarmy or on the post’s local CW TV station starting at 6:30 p.m.
