The Golden Gloves Tournament is an American institution which is centre stage in the amateur boxing world - a single-elimination contest in which young hopefuls square off in steamy gyms with the boxing elite looking on. Robert Anasi took up boxing in his twenties to keep in shape, attract women, and sharpen his knuckles for the odd bar fight. He thought of entering "the Gloves", but put it off. Finally, at the age of 33 - his last year of eligibility - he vowed to fight, even though he was an old man in a sport of teenagers and would have to starve himself all winter to make weight come tournament time. In Anasi's obsessive preparation for the Golden Gloves he finds Milton, a wily and abusive trainer, and joins his Supreme Team: a young black man who used to deal guns in Harlem, a bus driver with five kids and a hard-hitting woman champion who becomes his sparring partner. Meanwhile, he observes the changing world of amateur boxing, in which investment bankers spar with ex-convicts and everyone dreads the fatal blow to the head. With the Supreme Team, he goes to the tournament, the outcome of which, it seems, is rigged, like so much in boxing life today.