West Bridgewater, MA: The Night That Built the Corner
The story that explains the corner work at this gym starts in West Bridgewater, in a boxing gym that is not there any more.
Eddie Bishop ran Bishop’s out of West Bridgewater. Joe Pomfret, Joe Lauzon’s first instructor, had done some boxing with him. So when JL signed for an eight-man tournament in the World Fighting League, a night where he hoped to fight three times in the space of a few hours, the problem was not the opponents. The problem was hands and cuts. Three fights in one night means three wraps, three sets of knuckles taking punishment, and somebody in the corner who can stop a cut before the doctor does. Pomfret went to Bishop and asked whether he would work the corner. Bishop pointed them at Steve Maze instead.
The night Steve Maze wrapped his hands
JL had never really spoken to Maze before that night. No history, no training camp, no relationship. Maze wrapped his hands, and by JL’s own account he did a great job of it, which mattered because the right hand was already sore before the first fight started. Then JL went out and fought three times and won all three, and took the tournament. Whatever a fighter believes about his own toughness, that night is easier with someone in the corner who knows how to tape a hand properly and how to keep a cut closed between rounds.
That was the beginning. When the UFC called with Jens Pulver, JL knew he needed a real boxing coach rather than a jiu-jitsu coach teaching punches, and he went back to Maze. He knocked Pulver out in 48 seconds at UFC 63 in September 2006. Maze has been his boxing coach ever since, and the gym still lists him that way. One gym in West Bridgewater, one favour asked of a neighbour, and a corner that lasted twenty years.
How far is the gym from West Bridgewater?
Raynham serves this town: 10.7 miles and about 16 minutes from West Bridgewater Town Hall on North Main Street, measured on the roads in clear traffic. Route 106 west out of the centre to the Route 24 interchange, then south on 24 to the Route 44 exit. Canton is 13.3 miles and about 23 minutes, so it is a real alternative rather than a technicality, but the Raynham drive is the shorter one and it is the gym with the early mornings.
What is on the timetable
If you have never trained anywhere, start with the basics class and not the open mat. The first month is footwork, posture and learning to relax when somebody is on top of you, and the people you are paired with have all had that first month themselves.
Kids’ jiu-jitsu runs six days a week in three age groups, from Tiny Ninjas at three years old up to Cobras at ten to thirteen, with a combined class on Friday evening that puts the older kids together. Adults train jiu-jitsu on weekday evenings and both weekend mornings, kickboxing in a basics class and then a full class, and no-gi at 6:00 AM on three mornings plus the 10:00 AM slot that only the Raynham gym runs. Sunday morning opens with women’s jiu-jitsu at nine and ends with two open mats.
The town itself
West Bridgewater is the middle of the three Bridgewaters. It incorporated on 16 February 1822, after North Bridgewater, which became Brockton, and before East Bridgewater. The Town River ran the mills, the Hockomock Swamp fills the north-eastern edge and a good part of the south-western corner of town, and Route 24 cuts through the western half with its exit at Route 106. Route 106 meets Route 28 in the centre of town, which is where the town hall and the traffic are.
The schools are small and separate: Spring Street School for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, the Rose L. MacDonald School for grades one to three, Howard Elementary for four to six, and West Bridgewater Middle-Senior High for seven to twelve, where the teams are the Wildcats. Four buildings for one town of 7,707 people across 15.7 square miles, which is why everybody in West Bridgewater seems to know everybody else’s kids. Youth sport runs the same way, through the West Bridgewater Youth Athletic Association and its fields at Flaherty Field and the school gyms.
How to start
Call 508-219-0418 for a free intro appointment. Fifteen minutes, a walk round the room, how the classes and the membership work, then a short lesson so your first real class is not your first time on a mat. Shorts and a T-shirt is all you need. No experience, no fitness test, nothing to buy first.
Contact the Raynham gym
500 South Street West, Raynham, MA 02767, on Route 44 just off Route 24. 508-219-0418. Open 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Wednesday, 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM Tuesday and Thursday, 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM Friday, 9:00 AM to noon Saturday and 8:00 AM to noon Sunday. Full timetables are on the Raynham adult schedule and the Raynham kids schedule, and holiday weeks move, so check the date.