Braintree, MA: The Smaller Man Beat the Giant
Braintree is a city on the edge of the Blue Hills, and it is the kind of place where the gym knows a face without needing a membership list. Will Crockan is from here. He has been training with us for years, he is the four-time defending Beirut champion at the gym’s Christmas party, and Rich McLaughlin is the other name on that run.
The smaller man beat the giant
Will is a big man. John Payne is not. John is a bantamweight, and he was still taking fights for this gym in his late fifties, which is not a typo: he won one by TKO at 58. There is video of the two of them on the mat, and photos from more than one angle, and the short version is that John choked Will out. The smaller man beat the giant. It gets brought up, regularly, and Will has never once asked anybody to stop bringing it up. That is the whole story. It is not the reason to train here. It is the reason people stay.
Getting to the mats from Braintree
Two gyms serve Braintree, and Canton is the closer one by a wide margin. From Braintree Town Hall at 1 JFK Memorial Drive it is 9.9 miles and about 17 minutes to the Canton gym on Route 138, straight up Washington Street and Turnpike Street through Stoughton. From Braintree High School on Town Street the number barely moves: 9.7 miles, about 18 minutes. Raynham is 24.8 miles and roughly 35 minutes, down Route 24 and off at Route 44. Those are clear-road figures measured by OpenStreetMap routing, so add time at rush hour, and on a weekday morning the Southeast Expressway side of that drive is the part that decides it for most people.
The Blue Hills Reservation runs from Quincy through Braintree, Randolph, Milton, Canton and Dedham, and the Canton gym sits on the same side of it, which is part of why the drive is as short as it is. If you already walk or ride those trails, you already know the corridor.
The Red Line ends in Braintree, at the station on Ivory Street, so a car is not the only way to think about your week. It does not get you to Canton, but it does mean a lot of Braintree people already drive north every day and are used to measuring a trip in exits.
What the Canton room runs
Canton is a smaller room than Raynham and the schedule is built around evenings. Adult Brazilian Jiu Jitsu runs Tuesday and Thursday at 6 PM. Grappling, which is the no-gi class, runs Monday and Wednesday at 7 PM plus Saturday at 11 AM. Kickboxing runs four nights a week, Monday and Wednesday at 6 PM, Tuesday and Thursday at 7 PM. There is open mat Saturday at noon, which is the easiest way to meet the room without committing to a class. What that schedule means in practice: jiu-jitsu twice a week, grappling twice a week plus Saturday, and striking four nights. It is a room built for people who train around a job rather than around a competition calendar, and it still has a competition corner when somebody wants one.
Kids train Monday through Thursday in age bands: Tiny Ninjas at 5 PM for ages 3 to 5, Vipers at 5:30 for 6 to 9, Cobras at 6:15 for 10 to 13. A parent coming down Route 138 after work can make the 5 PM start if they leave on time, and the staggered times mean one trip can cover two kids in two age groups.
Adults, and where to start
Adults have three doors in: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing and No-Gi Grappling. Jiu-jitsu is the grappling core and the usual entry point, because technique does the work and size matters less than it looks like it should. Kickboxing is stand-up striking with a conditioning bill attached. No-Gi Grappling is the same grappling without the jacket, faster and sweatier. Adult classes run an hour.
You do not need any experience. The way in is a free intro appointment, about 15 minutes: a look around the gym, how classes and membership work, and a conversation about what you actually want. Bring shorts and a T-shirt. It ends with a short lesson on the mat, so your first class is not your first time on a mat.
How to start from Braintree
Fill in the form on this page. Pick a program, pick Canton or Raynham, leave a number that rings, and somebody will call you back to book the intro. If you would rather talk to a person, the Canton gym is 781-499-8302 and the Raynham gym is 508-219-0418.
Braintree is a 17 minute drive from a room where a man in his late fifties once choked out a man a head taller than him, and where the guy who got choked still shows up. That is a decent reason to come look.