Witness

Ringside: The boxing prodigies of Chicago’s South Side

Two gifted young Black boxers from Chicago’s notorious South Side beat the odds to turn pro.

Ringside looks at the volatile world of Chicago’s South Side from the perspective of two gifted young Black boxers and their fathers who train them.

As one begins a rising career, the other serves a four-year prison sentence for criminal trespass and burglary.

Kenneth Sims Sr and Destyne Butler Sr sacrifice everything in the interest of achieving the same goal: to make their sons boxing champions and to break the vicious circle of poverty that has held their families in a vulnerable state of economic uncertainty for generations.

Ringside follows the young boxers for nearly a decade.