Ever gone to a gym and become instantly inspired to work out or train? That happened to me this past weekend as I took a tour of BOXR Gym in Miami. The facility is run and operated by Mateo Attalla, a former 5-time national boxing champion in Australia and a bronze medalist in the World Championship with more than 200 amateur fights.
The facilities are everything you’d expect from a location in downtown Miami. There’s celebrity clientele like Israel Adesanya, Floyd Mayweather, Jake Paul, Ryan Garcia, Steve Stoutte and others. Yet I found there’s another layer rooted in the connection shared between Mateo, his Chief Marketing Officer, Daniel Abreu and master trainers like Fareed Samad.
BOXR Gym: Key Facts
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Gym | BOXR Gym |
| Location | Downtown Miami |
| Founder | Mateo Attalla |
| Size | 50,000 square feet |
| Members | About 4,000 |
| Built in | Four years, from zero |
| Rings | Four, including the members’ expansion |
| Also on site | MMA cage, CrossFit, calisthenics, yoga, Pilates, soccer pitch, huupe smart hoop |
| Marketing lead | Daniel Abreu |
| Head boxing coach | Fareed Samad |
| Basic membership | $220 per month |
| Upper tier | 24/7 access, sauna, extra ring, more equipment |
| Air conditioning | None in most areas |
| Weekly Bible study | About 12 weeks running |
| Recognition | Key to the City of Miami |
What You See Walking In
When you walk through the doors, the first thing you see is a Wall of Fame. It is littered with images of Mateo with a who’s who in combat sports and other walks of entertainment, politics and law enforcement. It tells you before you’ve touched a weight, climbed through the ropes, stepped inside the cage or struck a heavy bag, this is a real gym with esteemed clientele.
A few steps further there’s a luxury sports car. It was a black, old-school Mustang on my visit, but I’m told the cars are routinely rotated out. Couple that with the neon lights, murals on the all and standout art pieces and I immediately said, ‘this place should be in Grand Theft Auto 6.’ Mateo heard me and said, “it’s funny you say that. We’ve been trying to reach out the Rockstar to make that happen.” He was dead serious and I can’t say that I think it’s a crazy concept.
I can almost picture Jason busting in, stealing the car in the walkway or even climbing in the ring and taking on different fighters in the gym in some sort of boxing or MMA mini-game. Everything is there.
From A Penthouse Condo To 50,000 Square Feet
Attalla was stuck in Miami when COVID closed the flights home, put his savings into a friend’s business and lost it. What he had left was boxing.
“If I’m not going to get back in the ring, let me trial out from being a coach,” he said. “Let me see if I can actually teach it.”
He started teaching out of his own condo. The furniture went out, the bed went out, an ice plunge went on the second level.
“I turned that into the first ever boxing facility in the world in a penthouse condo,” Attalla said.
The pricing was equally unusual. “Rather than me putting a price point, you pay me what you think my value’s worth,” he told clients. It started around $50 a session. It ended at $600 and retainers.
The name came from home. BOXR was his fight name in Sydney, spelled without the E — his old MSN handle, his old Hotmail. He turned it into a brand.
“Currently own the biggest boxing facility probably in the world,” he said. “Fifty thousand square foot gym space with four thousand members. It’s taken four years, started with zero.”
Why It Doesn’t Feel Like A Gym
Abreu has a knack for shooting in-ring and training footage in a style that seems almost cinematic, but not so devoid of the grind associated with training that it creates a disconnect or kills the immersion. In this day and age when the content on social media says a lot about your overall worth, Abreu’s work ensures BOXR is being displayed honestly, but also in the best light.
He describes the approach plainly. “We don’t do marketing that is trendy. We don’t make content that the world is going to like. We do what we like.”
The room itself is doing work too. There is no air conditioning across most of the floor, which Abreu treats as a filter rather than an oversight.
“Most gyms that are always climate controlled, there’s no vibe,” he said. “Everyone’s on their headphones. Nobody’s talking to anybody.”
I noticed it before he said it. I don’t think I saw a single person wearing earphones.
“Why would you want to be isolated in your own world when you’re at home?” Abreu said. “Our members look at BOXR as their home.”
Attalla’s brief was theatrical from the start. “I’m going to make this an MGM Grand Fight Night,” Abreu said, describing the original vision. “When you come in here, you’re going to feel like you’re a champion walking into your fight.”
Daniel Abreu’s Other Fight
He was in chemotherapy when a friend told him about a guy running content for five bare knuckle fighters.
“I showed up to his small gym at the time,” Abreu said. “I saw the brand. I saw the owner. I watched his class and how he operated. And I said to myself, I can market this.”
What kept him there was what happened when he left for surgery.
“He had so many people coming in trying to fulfill that content position, and he didn’t hire anybody,” Abreu said. “He waited for me to heal and come back. When I saw that loyalty, I realized this is someone I can really build with on a bigger scale.”
He puts his own diagnosis in the same frame as everything else in the building.
“We’re all fighters,” he said. “Whether you’re fighting in the ring, or you’re fighting cancer, or you’re fighting a disability, it takes a lot of faith, a lot of courage, a lot of consistency to still show up every day and train. There was never a moment in time where I even considered that we were going to lose this fight.”
Abreu’s story struck me personally, as I have lost multiple family members to cancer, and it does something special for me to see survivors not only survive, but to thrive.
The Bible Studies
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the tour and information gathering process came when we discussed the facility’s weekly Bible studies. Both Attalla and Abreu seemed surprised by the engagement from their community, but that buy-in has seemingly ensured it will remain a staple in the gym’s list of benefits and options for its customer base.
Attalla dates the decision to a single morning about seven weeks before we spoke.
“It was like God tapping me on the shoulder and saying, hey, it’s time to spread my name, utilize the platform of what I created,” he said.
It cost him. “I lost members for doing what I did,” he said. “But then I thought to myself, well, no, if that’s a sign from God, then I must do it.”
It also worked. Abreu says the sessions now run four hours and draw between 50 and 100 people, split between scripture and Attalla’s business teaching. By his description, they stay “in a gym that has no AC just because they want to hear the word of God.”
Attalla frames it as a training principle rather than a program. “In order to be the best version of yourself, you got to have faith in God. You got to be mentally strong. You got to be physically strong. You got to be aligned in all three areas. Without that, it’s not going to work.”
The GTA 6 Case
Abreu’s pitch is not subtle, and it is not wrong.
“We are Miami lifestyle in one location,” he said. “We have the celebrities, we have the athletes, we have the fighters, we have the exotic cars, we have the beautiful downtown location.”
He has thought about the gameplay, too. “I want to run in here and look at some hot girls, and I want to jump in the Rolls Royce and drive it right out the front door. Or I want to run in and hop in the ring, and at any time I can pull somebody who’s around ringside in to fight me.”
The honest caveat: Rockstar has historically built parodies of real Miami rather than licensing real businesses into it, and GTA 6 arrives November 19 with its map long since finished. BOXR is reaching out. Nothing more than that has happened, yet. However, it is highly unlikely GTA 6 will release in its final form.
We’ll see what happens down the road.
Is It Worth $220 A Month?
The equipment, the three boxing rings and MMA cage were top notch. All of them could easily be used in real events. At least one of the rings has been used for a real boxing show held right there in BOXR gym. While there’s tons of glamour at BOXR, if you’re looking for a more clubby spot, this probably isn’t for you. They go with no air conditioning in most areas. If that bothers you, there’s probably nothing equipment or clientele related that’ll impress you.
If you’re looking for something from both worlds and you can make it to Downtown Miami without a fuss, it’ll be hard to find a better spot. The cost is $220 per month for the basic membership, but there is a higher tier for select members who gain 24/7 access to an expansion portion that has a sauna, recovery area with cryotherapy and another boxing ring with more equipment.
Samad is a boxing coach who has trained Haney his last three fights. I met him and loved his energy, and the same goes for other members of the staff. You can tell Abreu and others share a vision that has placed BOXR at a place that sits higher than simply a cool place to work.
Samad, who owns Train2Perfection, has also worked with Daniel Jacobs and trains Curmel Moton.
What Mateo Attalla Actually Built
Ask him what the hardest part was and he does not say the money.
“It wasn’t making the money. It wasn’t building this place,” Attalla said. “It was actually getting people to believe. It’s building the culture. And when you build the culture, that’s it. You take care of the people, the people take care of you.”
Abreu describes the founding group as “a small group of ragtag underdogs who came together to make the biggest impact that nobody saw coming.”
The city has since made it official. Mayor Francis Suarez presented Attalla and BOXR with a Key to the City of Miami.
Customers may come for the glamour, but it seems they stay for the grind and the substance. The Bible study is probably only possible because it is a private gym and perhaps that’s best for a group that wants to do things their way.
While there wasn’t a specific plan for expansion laid out, Abreu mentioned the gym has its eyes on adding to the massive space they already have in place.
I didn’t act on my impulse initially. I wasn’t dressed to hit the bag or roll, but I have made plans to work out when I’m back in Miami.
Be the first to comment