Oral Histories: Angelo

I'm Angelo, 31 years old. I was born in Milan. I moved to Sicily when I was about 16 or 17 years old, and I moved to London about six years ago. The love for boxing started about when I was 13, I think... Before I fell in love with boxing, I fell in love with the hard training. Every time I teach people boxing, I say, I say "You have to enjoy the pain". I love when my muscles are burning. That's why I can understand when young lads come in that they don't train hard, it's like... I don't I don't really get it. I never I never I never walk in a gym once to yeah, of course you want to have a laugh but to chat... I want, I want to train hard on and after when I'm moved to Sicily. I start fighting as an amateur boxer and then the rest happen years later when when I came to London and and I turned professional.

I think I had a lot of anger inside me. And, and I for all I start boxing again. And and I think I was good. I became one of the best in the gym quite quickly. I think what my secret is not pure talent it's [that] I'm hardworking by nature. My nan almost always taught me the sense of how to spend the money. She always said if you have a hundred, you spend eighty, you don't spend a hundred. When my dad was spending hundred and one hundred a fifty! So... many people keep saying they come from a rough background council. Least I can't say that because it's not true. I come from a middle class, wealthy family, so I perfectly know what means [to have] car, watches, money. But I also come from a from a family that lost every single penny. So I've been on both sides. I know what money means. And I also know what it means to not have the money to pay bills at the end of the month or don't have money for the shopping. That's why I don't get impressed. I don't get impressed from anyone and anything. That's I think why.

Um. I didn't want to really turn professional, but once I was here, I start sparring and I was very relentless, very relentless as a fighter. And I think I was very good. I know I was very good. Sparred with many, many, many good fighters. I trained with many good fighters. I just feel I was a little bit too old to make the money I wanted to make, because at the end of the day, if you get punched in the face, you're doing it for a yeah for glory, but you want a financial return. And I was thinking, as a foreigner, I was a little bit behind, you know. I didn't have the... If I was 23, 22, I would have given a go. I would have stayed there and I just decided to go for my Plan B and my Plan B has always been I want to open a boxing gym or I want to give my passion, my knowledge to the general public and find a future superstar to train.

Then I just fell in love with East London. Listen, there is no other place that right now I'm thinking to open a gym. For me, East London is the best part of London. All the story of England, like including Essex. You know, you see like a kind of next gen coming up... Office, bars, the happiness of people... It's new.

Let's start from the beginning. In Italy, there is this kind of when you are when you are a fighter, when you are very good in boxing, people see you like a kind of - especially if you live in a small pond - people see you like a kind of an idol. But at some point, when it is time to turn professional, just a few turn professional, because people are not happy to pay the money to buy tickets for your flights. I had a great time in Sicily. I just thought I couldn't have achieved the my dreams down there. And that's where the challenge came up. And I decided to move here.

Let's be clear. Just a few of them [boxers] as a very small percentage makes it to that big money. Like hundreds of thousands. So I don't want to say, oh, no, because after they start calling me from Italy and saying, "Oh, you made a lot of money with boxing and I say no...I make more money with personal training. So it's not what it seems. I've seen, I've seen so many fighters, actually, good fighters, but they are no good sellers. They are not get good characters. They don't have charisma. And then they don't have any opportunities. Personality and charisma in boxers is a fundamental, I would say. Today you see YouTubers fight each other... They're not boxers, but they they excite the next gen. And that's the reality of Gen Z, call it as you like. And that in a way is pretty scary. But we need to accept it and, again, you swim or you drown. And I decided that I wanted to swim.

Your opponent wants to have the feeling that he's going to literally break his hands on you. So your defence is strong and if you have a strong defence, you can apply your attack. If you are good at punching and you're not good at defending and defending. I believe at some point you might be knocked out. So and that's not pleasant when seen. So when I was younger, I never I've never really had many injuries. I don't know if maybe it's the bone structure. I never break anything. Possibly I broke my nose, but never been to the hospital. Well, so on that side I've been pretty... I don't you like to use the word lucky. I don't believe in luck. I don't. I don't gamble again. It's all about hard work. But yeah, I've been possibly a little bit lucky. I didn't, I didn't get I didn't. I never I never I don't know. What does it mean? Fingers crossed, I never broke a bone. Especially, more than breaking something, most of the time we live with chronic inflammation, tendon problems, all the time. And sometimes we don't even understand where they come from. You go have a scan and nd they can't give you an answer. It's just the repetition of the work we are doing. And sometimes we don't take enough rest.

Yeah, I believe in boxing. You can you can be the bad guy, the nice guy or the gentleman. Whoever you think is better but being a bit of a neutral guy that doesn't say a word in these days and possibly in the past as well is not good because you're not selling tickets. Um, that's another thing that you need. You need to a bit of hype in these fights. And that doesn't really matter if, uh, most of the time the hype is not real because fighters hug each other at the end of the fight, just a bit of trash talking and that's it.

When fighters enter the ring or when fighters are doing the walk out... the emotion are lots of emotions. And you never, ever, I think - especially when you go upper level - get rid of of those emotions. You get in the habit, but there is always that kind of adrenaline. And the kind of... You are a bit worried... I'm mean even Mike Tyson used to say "I was scared". At the end of the day, you're going to get punched in the face. But everything stops, when the bell goes, when the bell goes and you receive the first punch, I think that's what I felt personally, you understand okay. The fight's starting and you're fully immersed in your own world in that case and you don't really see people around, you need to listen as much as you can to your corner but it's just the two of you in the ring and just you and your opponent.

[I... when you grow up you realise, oh how much anger you had and possibly it's not easy, even today, to get rid of completely of that anger. You need to keep reminding yourself day by day that you're not angry anymore. You have a beautiful family and you have a beautiful gym and you almost made it. There is...There is a long way in front of you, but the future is bright. All of us. We've been through different situations of struggle and anger and I will definitely recommend to every single person to join boxing. Boxing is a perfect stress relief... to fight is violent, it's silly to say that boxing is not violent. It is. We're going to punch each other in the face. So I want to teach people that you want to fight? You need to punch out the person with bad intentions.

These days, I believe boxing is changing. Actually, in the recent days about in the last 12 months, 18 months, we've seen very, very good professional female fights. Very, very good, incredibly good and there is a kind of a hype. But for the normal person. Oh it's mean to say that boxing is dangerous or is violent. No. You know you can get in a boxing gym, punch the bag, do completely safe drills and that's safer than many other sports. I would say one can be the one of the safest sports, you know, practised in that way.

Boxing teaches people discipline. Boxing, of course, is good for self-defence, but boxing also teach you when it's time to walk way. When it's time to tell yourself, "Oh, there is no point, I can hurt you, but there is no point". But at the end of the day, you might find yourself at the point where you're going to get you're going to get hit from some stupid person and at least you're able to defend yourself.