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Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare.

— A quote from Muhammad Ali found taped near a door at the Interactive Resource Center in Greensboro.

GREENSBORO — Local boxing promoter Walter Johnson III sliced through the crowd and eyeballed his first fight night in more than two years at the Special Events Center at the Greensboro Coliseum.

As the crowd flowed through the door, he kept thinking to himself, “How many tickets have I sold?’’

As Johnson fretted, Brantly Grier relaxed at a table in the back with his 6-year-old son, Kyle. Grier brought Kyle to the fights because he wanted his son to get jazzed by boxing.

But all Kyle wanted was popcorn, candy, anything to take his mind off sitting in a huge room that felt as humid as a working kitchen and smelled of strong cologne and sweat.

“Dad, it stinks in here!’’ Kyle exclaimed.

Grier laughed. He felt the same way when he used to watch his dad, an amateur boxer, train at Charlotte’s Southside Academy. But he learned to love the science of boxing. Now, at age 29, he wanted his son to find that love, too.

Johnson knows that feeling. He grew up in Kings Forest, a subdivision in northeast Greensboro, and he got hooked on boxing at age 7 when he watched one of the legendary fights between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali on TV.

Later, after his father taught him how to move his feet and deliver a punch in the family’s living room, Johnson and his friends turned his backyard into their own boxing ring.

They all bought gloves and mouthpieces, channeled their inner Ali and duked it out inside two sections of rope — or string or yarn — tied like strands of a spiderweb among a rectangle of trees.

Like Grier, Johnson never lost his love for boxing. And today, at age 42, a dad and teacher at Dudley High, Johnson promotes fights in and around Greensboro in his spare time. Saturday night represented his 52nd in 12 years.

After April 2007, Johnson had backed off promoting fights at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex because the matches were costing him too much money for too little return. Plus, he and his wife Samara had just had their third child, a little girl.

So time — and money — had been tight.

But Saturday night, he felt good. He saw an incredibly diverse, incredibly raucous crowd of 645 people come out to see a seven-fight card that looked like the United Nations.

Boxers came from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia and Russia. And from Greensboro.

Like Ronnie “Juantae’’ Glover. Grier knows him well.

They met in January at the Interactive Resource Center, the day center for local homeless people. Grier manages the place; Glover needed help. He was homeless.

At first, Glover walled himself off from everyone. But he warmed to Grier, and eventually, they became close friends. Their shared love of boxing helped.

So, Saturday night, with his son beside him, Grier came to cheer Glover on.

“Alright, Juantae, take your time, baby!’’ Grier yelled from his table. “You’re representing Greensboro! C’mon!’’

For the first time in a year, Glover climbed back into the ring. He fought a boxer from Reidsville named “Shotgun,’’ got knocked down twice in the second round, and lost the fight by technical knockout.

He’s now 7-4. But he has a place to stay and a potential job and he’s fighting again. He’s starting over.

Johnson is starting over, too. He turned a $2,500 profit from his $10,000 production Saturday night. So, he’s coming back to the Greensboro Coliseum on Sept. 26 for another production of Saturday Night KO Fights.

And Kyle? Well, once the fights started, he got over the stink and the heat quick. He now wants to be like his dad’s friend. The guy he calls Juantae.

“C’mon Dad,’’ Kyle said after the fight, weaving and throwing shadow punches at his father in the parking lot. “I’m a boxer! I’m a boxer!’’

“Kyle,’’ Grier told his son. “You can do anything you want to do.’’

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com