The Sanctuary Boxing Club

09/11/2026

To the New Kensington Community,
This city often gets a bad reputation in most of the news and newspaper stories but there is something special about this little town and it’s the people of this community. You all stand up for what’s right, you support your own at all costs, and all of you will forever hold a special place in my heart for supporting this crazy dream. We did everything that we could to stay here and continue giving back to this community that we called home but the city has made their decision and now we must live with that decision. We are fighters, this is what we do best and I promise you in the end good will always prevail over evil. This chapter of our story is now closed and the next chapter will begin very soon. We have great news that we will share very soon but just know we are forever grateful to the community that gave us a start and we did our very best to put the Sanctuary as close to New Kensington as we could to continue touching lives in this city.

Coach Rich

Sanctuary Boxing Club in New Kensington has less than three months to find a new location after the city’s zoning hearing board denied its special exception request for business use. City Engineer Tony Males said the Strawn Avenue location is zoned residential and, when the gym opened in 2020....

09/11/2026

We would like to wish safe travels and good skills to La DINAMITA as she travels into enemy territory this weekend to take on one of the nations best. Delilah and Coach Dallas are headed to Cincinnati today for the queen of the ring show tomorrow to take on the 2025 Silver Gloves National Champ. It’s national champion vs national champion Saturday for all marbles. The future of women’s boxing is here, go do your thing kid 🩵

09/10/2026

This is who you called the cops on for “harassment” btw

🗣️ Alexa: Play COPS theme song

09/09/2026

Screaming a huge Happy Birthday to the one and only Coach Rich. Thank you for all that you do for everyone at the Sanctuary. You truly are changing lives everyday and we are so thankful for you. May we be blessed with you singing Whitney Houston at practice for years to come !!

09/08/2026

We would like to clear the air before the newspaper or news releases a story. We want the truth straight from the owners before rumors begin to swirl. First and foremost the Sanctuary is not closing, shutting down the gym was never even an option throughout this entire process.
Now onto how we got here…. When Cheri and I purchased the church 7 years ago ironically to the day we didn’t pay attention to zoning because who would have ever thought a church that still had the altar, no bathroom, and no kitchen would be zoned residential. We built the gym and started running classes and over the years built one of the best boxing gyms not only in Pittsburgh but the entire country in that little church. The sanctuary has produced more national championships than any other gym in Pittsburgh history. More importantly we have touched so many lives here in New Kensington and the surrounding areas through the sport of boxing. We’ve taught a lot of life lessons through our platform to so many kids and adults! We even started a free program Wyatt’s Warriors for students with special needs. Through the years most of the neighbors in the area were very kind to us and would wave to everyone, granted every now and then we had a mistake here or there with parking or other minor things. The problem began when a new neighbor moved in across the street. For whatever reason they did not want our gym there. They went to the new Kensington office often with complaints about parking and other things such as people smoking on our property. Mind you in the previous 6 years we never had a noise complaint, any vandalism, or any other complaint from others in the area. They forced New Kensington to do something because they found out we were zoned incorrectly and we were operating a commercial business out of a residential building. We had to apply for a variance and during the first meeting they asked us to fix some stuff such as the parking and we did by changing our schedule and we even had other local people offer for us to use their lots. Our final meeting with the New Kensington zoning board did not go our way and they ruled in favor of the neighbor and we did not get the variance. After the decision we were given 90 days to get out.
Well where do we go from here, I was always taught that bad things don’t happen to good people and after all the good we put into this community and all the time and money put into that gym I never thought this could happen to us. In the moment what seemed to be the worst thing ever was the biggest blessing in disguise. I truly believe this was destiny and my Dad had something to do with this to push us to go bigger and better and really expand. We didn’t even wait a day before the search began for the next home of the sanctuary and we are currently in meetings with a building that just seemed like it was meant to be. We are looking at moving into the kiski area so there isn’t much change for our current members. It’s time to go big and that’s the plan. We will continue to keep everyone updated as these 90 days will go by quickly! This is not the end trust me this is just what we needed to force our hand to go touch even more lives through the sport of boxing and to build a bigger gym to build even more champions. Sanctuary 2.0 loading and yes we are running as normal until we move!

To our neighbor and to the New Kensington zoning board THANK YOU 🙏🏼

Our success will be the greatest revenge 🩵

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to all the neighbors that took care of us over the years. Thank you to anyone and everyone who stepped through those church doors and gave us a chance.

09/07/2026

Reminder the gym will be closed today in accordance with Labor Day. We will release a public statement tonight to let everyone know what’s going on with the gym.

09/04/2026

Sparring is 630-8 tonight with our new schedule

See you all there leave the egos at home ❤️

08/30/2026

Major Announcement ❗️

Starting tomorrow Monday August 31st we will move to a new schedule. We are keeping the same days but moving everything back one hour. Coach Rich starts his next job tomorrow and finishes later but also we wanted the kids to have some time to eat and relax after school before coming to boxing.

Monday
Fight Team 6-730 pm
Kids/Adults Boxing 730-830pm

Tuesday
Wyatts Warriors 630-715pm
Kids/Adults Boxing 730-830pm

Wednesday
Fight Team 6-730pm

Thursday
Fight Team 6-730pm
Kids/Adults Boxing 730-830pm

Friday
Sparring 6-8 pm

As always thank you for understanding. We will also be releasing our back to school special tomorrow which will run for the next two weeks for all new members!

08/12/2026

Christopher AKA Stink has been with us for a while now in our kids class with his 3 sisters. If we could find a way to bottle this kids energy and sell it we would be billionaires. As much as a pain in the ass as Stink has been at times just being a typical little boy he’s also a lot of people in the gyms favorite. It’s hard not to love the kid because his energy is unmatched, the way he messes with literally everyone is hysterical, and the kid is always smiling even in the middle of sparring he’s having the time of his life. Stink recently started putting everything together inside the gym and has officially earned his spot on our fight team. He’s now the youngest on the team and he has a long road of him in these next two years before he can get in the ring but when he does this kid is going to be a superstar, trust me I’ve seen this story before in our gym and he has all the pieces to be a national champion.
Yesterday Stink showed up thinking it was fight team practice but it was our Wyatt’s Warriors class and instead of sending him home we brought him into the gym and let him coach and show some things to the class. It was an opportunity as a coach that I saw to not only grow as a fighter but to grow as a young man. He got to be around kids with special needs and the way that he jumped in to help out was something that would warm anyone’s heart. The future is in good hands here at the sanctuary, we have another home grown superstar in the making!

08/08/2026

Mike Zecca keeps the winning train on the tracks today with a very good win. Boxing is hard enough but fighting outside in this heat just multiplies it, Mike showed that’s he’s not just a power puncher today and showed off some new stuff. Hats off to Jack Maine and those guys at Ellwood City and their fighter David for stepping up today. Jack and his team are some of the realest left in this boxing game.