The North Carolina Golden Gloves championship is sports without pretense.

There are no agents and no showers. Boxers change clothes in their cars and anywhere else with a closed door. Walk into the restroom and one boxer is putting on his trunks in the front, another in the back. And they could be boxing each other.

In every corner of the Sugaw Creek Recreation Center somebody hits mitts, dances or listens to a coach. The pressure is enormous. They get nine minutes - three three-minute rounds - to win a state title.

Teammates Michael Basaldua and Steven Lawrence of the Charlotte Boxing Academy compete in Saturday's second fight. Each won his 132-pound bout Friday.

Basaldua is one of the three Charlotte boxers I wrote about in Friday's Observer. The others are Kendra Macon, who fights at 132 pounds, and Hasan Young, who fights at 152.

The goal for each is to advance to the regional tournament in Knoxville March 30-April 2, to the national tournament in Indianapolis and to London as part of the 2012 U.S. Olympic team.

Basaldua, 23, is outstanding Saturday. He boxes when he's expected to punch and punches when he's expected to box. At one juncture, he motions with his gloves, and it's subtle, inviting Lawrence to stop moving and fight.

The referee points to Basaldua and briefly halts the fight. In amateur boxing, you don't use your gloves to perform. You use them to punch.

"I was trying to get fans excited," Basaldua says.

He did and they were and his arm is up before the decision is announced.

Fighters fight beneath an American flag and folded basketball baskets. Fans sit in bleachers and metal folding chairs. When they get excited they stand and shout free and helpful advice.

Calvin Brock, the former Charlotte Olympian who fought Wladimir Klitschko for the heavyweight championship, is here. So is Kelvin Seabrooks, who had a long amateur career in Charlotte before becoming the International Boxing Federation bantamweight champion.

The Charlotte boxing community is small but appreciative. Seabrooks, 47, walks into the gym and fans slap his shoulder, shake his hand and call his name.

"I feel like Obama," Seabrooks says.

Kendra Macon, 25, bought her first house in August and invited her 80-year-old grandfather, a veteran who was injured in Vietnam 45 years ago, to move in. He uses a wheelchair, and watched from the first row. He had never seen her fight.

Macon had to shed weight quickly to make the 132-pound limit, and it shows. She's sluggish. Her opponent, Darina Mims of Greensboro, is superb. At times it's like a TV fight with everybody landing everything. But most of the time, it is Mims who lands. In the third round the referee stops the fight and declares Mims the winner.

Hasan Young, who moved to Charlotte from Philadelphia, is a marvelous boxer. But he forgets.

After jabbing effectively, he begins to slug with Kenneth Council of the Young Guns team. Young takes a few shots, but lands many more, and in the second round the referee stops the fight. Young will join Basaldua in Knoxville.

"Nah, I'm not happy," says Young, 20. "The jab was working. I should have boxed more."

Why didn't you?

"Philly, you know," he says.

Nah.

Knoxville.