You can say ah Neiman landed an entrepreneurial knockout punch after turning his single flagship Rumble studio in New York into a global boxing brand.
But before its eventual rise to becoming the beast of boxing boutique clubs, the road to group fitness success was littered with plenty of knockdown moments—some unavoidable and some Neiman admits were self-inflicted—that may have left most others on the canvas for the 10 count.
For Neiman, his strategy for creating Rumble’s worldwide recognition consisted of one-part vision—a plan in which he meticulously wrote out on a $3 Office Depot-style notebook for three years—and countless circuits of round-the-clock preparation, promotion, and problem solving. The Pittsburgh-born boxing boss fought off not only a pandemic-based shutdown, but a number of naysayers questioning his boxing-for-the-masses blueprint, as well as his personal bouts of anxiety and addiction.
To get to its success today, Neiman’s groundwork for Rumble began literally in the basement—at New York City’s Lexington Hotel, where Neiman would drag along a set of discount store speakers and a few heavy bag to test run his idea of a boxing class in front of family and friends. “We just had a hope a dream and a good team,” he says. “There are principles in business that are like training. I love training because it requires discipline, and you don’t necessarily see the results instantly. But that doesn’t deter you from staying the course and sticking to the plan.”
It worked. In less than a decade Rumble has expanded beyond anyone’s vision, even Neiman’s. With the help of his team, and a group of investors such as Rocky himself, Sylvester Stallone—Rumble has gone from one studio into 14 signature clubs and more than 300 facilities worldwide. The worldwide success and recognition is the result of hard work in both the boardroom and gym. It wasn’t surprising, but being at the top has humbled the personal trainer each time he gets noticed, not matter what part of the world he’s traveling.
“I was just at a Rumble event in Bondi, Australia, and I’m getting stopped at the Sydney Opera House from people yelling, ‘Yo, Rumble guy! I took your class in New York City in 2017 in Chelsea.” Here I’m outside the Opera House, someplace I’ve never been before. You couldn’t be further away from New York. It’s crazy.”
Neiman’s never won any boxing titles or had a movie series based on his rags to riches story—although you’ve probably seen him teaching others to jab and bob and weave on shows like Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, Bravo TV’s Work Out New York and others—but his impact on how the everyday fitness fan looks at boxing makes him as valuable to the industry as some of its heavyweights.
Rumble’s motto is “10 rounds, 2 fists, 0 experience,” which translates into a studio boxing club becoming the perfect workout for both the working mothers and meatheads looking to drop a few left and right hands into one of the dozens of Aqua bags each club is equipped with—while at the same time a DJ is dropping house music beats for the hourlong class.
Neiman’s unique approach to boxing and fitness has inevitably led to the rise—and the inevitably eventual demise—of many copycat clubs. Although a club can mimic the workout and aesthetics, it’s nearly impossible to duplicate the electrified authenticity and enthusiasm Neiman and his team bring to every class.
“We found rumble to be a really credible and authentic way where you can kind of dip your toes in the baby pool of boxing and then if you’re really you really want old school traditional boxing gym like a Gleason’s,” he says. “In New York, we’ve been such a good buffer for the Gleason’s, the Church Streets, the trinity, the traditional brick and mortar boxing gyms, which is what I love.”
Neiman’s Winning Strategy isn’t based on any secret influencer-style formula, instead, sticking to the basics through the good and rough times—Rumble overcame the pandemic, some business miscalculation, and Neiman admits to battling through addiction and anxiety. And just like Rocky, when you do get knocked down—and everyone does, Neiman warns—you find a way to get back up, whether it through faith or fitness or both. For Neiman, it was fulfilling the Rumble dream as well as digging into the life principles learned through boxing, jiujitsu, and weight training.
“It’s not how hard you can hit it’s how hard you can get hit and keep on going,” ah Neiman says. “That’s just that’s business 101. I’m not saying anything that people don’t already know. But sometimes it’s nice to hear the basics because the basics work in or outside of the ring.”
ah Neiman’s Winning Strategy
Silence the Doubters Through Your Work, Says ah Neiman
I’m the first to admit that I’m not special. I’m just some random dude from Pittsburgh, who trained himself habitually, to be what he wanted to be.
I had spent years building my own brand in order to eventually launch what I had been writing in a notebook for three years—Rumble.
Throughout the early days, the doubters were there. “Nine out of 10 gyms fail.” “It’s a saturated market!” “body’s going to want to box all the time.” “You’re closing your customer base.” And to be honest, I LOVED every second of that.”
For all those people in my life who told me I couldn’t do it, it became that chip on my shoulder that kept pushing me in those dark long nights when I would work six or seven days a week. When we launched, I would be doing tons of press, training the trainers, plotting for future for expansion, while at the same time teaching at least 20 classes a week.
Pouring your heart into your dream takes a lot of energy. So thank God I literally lived the life that I was telling people how they should live to feel better, have more energy, and be able to do the things they want to do. It’s the Kobe Bryant approach: The most important thing we can do is to inspire others to be great at what they want to do.
It takes a lot of consistent effort. And sometimes that consistent effort doesn’t apparently pay off. But the culmination of all those little micro battles that you win on the day to day is what creates something special. And it takes discipline—the stuff that you do when you don’t feel like it when you’re tired, when nine out of 10 gyms fail, you’re doubting yourself, knowing you have nothing but that memory of motivation to keep pushing you forward.
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But First, You Must Do the Work Yourself
I’ve found from basically reading every business book, from Warren Buffett to Dale Carnegie, that even though many underlying business principles may be dressed up fancy, it comes down to this: You either do the work or you don’t.
There’s been this rise of Instagram “inspirational” figures who have this secret formula that leads to success. In the end they’re the ones who are getting rich and aren’t really helping that. Many people
There are days when I fail at this, but I’m able pick it up and learn from my losses and bad experiences. It teaches you empathy and gratitude. These are important things that your business should be based out of. When you focus on what you can give rather than just what you can get, you’d be so surprised how it gets you out of your own dark mental places as well. And the biggest thing for an entrepreneur is that you must take responsibility, through the good and bad. At one point, Rumble had a rocky road—the pandemic and the missteps—and I take responsibility for that. You cannot be a leader and just lead when it’s light outside. You have to be a leader in the pouring rain—through the thunderstorms and the typhoons and the hurricanes.
It’s why I love the gym so much. I’m not only physically stronger, but I’m more confident. What keeps me training now is I know that it makes me feel better and give me more energy. I’m more confident when I walk into that boardroom or meeting. This is why you have to schedule in those self-improvement sessions for yourself, so you can better serve others.
Use Your Fitness Discipline to Fight Through Adversity
It’s smart to learn from your own mistakes. It’s genius to learn from other people’s mistakes. Like mine.
When I almost overdosed on drugs, I nearly lost everything. I almost died. I still remember those dark times and I never want to go back there. I don’t ever want to end up feeling like I have all this potential and all this energy to give but didn’t have an outlet to give it. So on the days when I wake up tired as hell when I don’t feel like doing it. I think back to those moments.
It’s been 15 years since I’ve touched drugs. I feel like I’m on borrowed time right now, so I’m “free” to do whatever I want, so to speak. I’ve learned life is very fragile, and things change very fast. But one thing is for certain — you will always have doubts, but you must never let doubt win out.
It’s always going to be there, even when you’re on top. You’ll have doubts whether you deserve to have success. You have to figure how to weather the storm, and that can be personal. I went to extremes, with bouts of depression and anxiety and went a very dark route. I was fortunate to have family who were so supportive and there to me.
I also remembered the principles that I learned early on from boxing, strength training, and jiujitsu that helped me get out of my funk. I always have to thank Warren Stout, a Renzo Gracie black belt who started Stout training facility near Pittsburgh. I was driving by one day and he was outside literally hanging up his sign. I had trained with Matt Serra and Nick Serra on Long Island when I went to Hofstra, and I remembered how I would walk out of training exhausted and beat up. I didn’t want to party, I just wanted to rest, recover, and do it again.
They weren’t even open yet, I introduced myself. I said, I’m ah and I’m really messed up. Can you take me under your wing?” I wound up training with them five, six days a week for a year and a half. That gave me the mental and emotional strength as I was going through withdrawals and panic attacks and anxiety to leave Pittsburgh go back to New York.
So life is a series of fortunate and unfortunate events and it’s all part of it. It’s all par for the course. you just have to learn how to navigate.
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There’s no Balance When It Comes to Success, but Self Care Is a n-Negotiable
Balance is a myth, for the most part. If you look at the greats in any arena, sports or entrepreneurial, they lived an extreme life of imbalance for a long time before they work towards any type of balance. So it depends on what your barometer of success is. Is it money? Is it impact? Is it service to others? Is it a combination of those things?
Success for me was being able to build my life and where I work and what I do to create with that kind of personal lifestyle that I wanted. And it involved long hours night after night, day after day. But I love training. It makes me feel good and I know I have to do it. I’ll always feel better even on those days I don’t want to do it. I’ll go take a class and then go run up to a meeting, knowing that I’m gonna feel so much better once I take that class.
Try telling Floyd Mayweather or Mike Tyson that they need more more balance in your life. Don’t train six days a week, train at the Catskills or don’t talk to your family while you’re training. You want to be great, but you also need to go find that balance—it’s just not true.
However, you absolutely have to take care of your mental well being. This is 100% true. You’re no good to anybody else if you’re completely shot. So when I’m saying, no balance, I don’t mean, “no days off” or “sleep when you’re dead”—that stuff’s bulls***. I love to sleep. I love to recover and rest. I love to do those things that help me reup my energy so that I can give it freely and unencumbered. And because of it I’ve been very fortunate to build a life and a lifestyle around my entrepreneurial endeavors.
Take Pride by Giving Yourself to Others
I learned this Muhammad Ali quote when I was a little a**hole kid being very selfish, and it really changed my perspective on life: “Service to others is our rent for our room here on Earth.” I say it in every single podcast because that’s how impactful and important it is.
I love creating value for others, and through Rumble, I’m able to create experiences for people. There were so many times when I felt so isolated that I wanted to create something where people could come and still be themselves but be supported by a badass crew and support their own ascension—whatever that may be, to be a better boxer, or to be stronger, healthier, to have more energy for your kids, your loved ones, whatever that is. You can find it here.
And that’s what I love. So I’m very honored that I get to do it on a bigger scale now, but the most fun for me is creation art comes in many different forms and this is just my canvas.
I’ll leave you with another one, some stoicism from Seneca: “The body should be treated rigorously, that it may not be disobedient to the mind.” This quote flies back to the fact that your body is your one true piece of real estate that you own. You know, you might own your house, but you’re not going to be buried with it. But you own that body whether you step outside of your home or not. And that body houses your soul, your spirit, and your mind. So if that’s weak, you can’t have the strongest mind. So train the body rigorously.
