In ESBC, you will rise through the Amateur system, going through the professional ranks to win the coveted Lonsdale Belt, then going onto Continental and World titles featuring officially licensed governing bodies.

“Actually, many young men I used to look up to are either dead or in jail. Whenever I fight, I feel like their legacy is going into the ring with me. It’s a big responsibility, but I’ll take that. There’s a lot of bad stuff that comes from Baltimore, but if they see that one person can do it, then the next one can do it, and so on and so on. The only thing that I can do is to bring light to Baltimore. Boxing has saved my life.”

Why He’s Here: Son of former world champion Chris Eubank, British fighter Chris Eubank Jr. is an athletic middleweight with serious potential. The former reality-TV star suffered his one and only loss last year to Billy Joe Saunders. The fight was a nip-and-tuck slugfest between two solid undefeated fighters. Saunders edged Eubank Jr. on the scorecards in a fight that could have gone either way. Still, at just 25 years old, the best boxing of Eubank Jr’s career is ahead of him.

Why He’s Here: Australia’s best middleweight, Daniel Geale is a crafty, awkward and fast-handed former titleholder who is tough as nails. He holds notable wins over the likes of Felix Sturm, Anthony Mundine and Jarrod Fletcher but hasn’t been able to defeat good-to-elite 160-pounders like Gennady Golovkin and Miguel Cotto.

In the early days of boxing history, it’s believed there were no standard divisions to distinguish competitors, meaning dangerous size mismatches were common in the sport and became unsatisfying spectacles for fans.

As we move into the mid-range weight classes, the tactical nature of boxing begins to shine. Fighters in the Super Bantamweight to Featherweight classes are celebrated not only for their physical attributes but for their mental acuity and strategic approach to each bout.

Surprisingly, grease or petroleum jelly can make a big difference in a boxing match. Jelly, grease, or ointment are applied on the boxer’s face before the boxing match begins and in between rounds as well. The jelly or grease makes the boxer’s skin very slippery, and thus the impact of punches is minimized. In a match, the cutman will be responsible for spreading the substance when needed. It is quite easy and cheap to purchase either grease or petroleum jelly for as little as $2 a container.

Why He’s Here: Lemieux, age 26, is one of Canada’s best fighters. He’s a middleweight version of Jack Dempsey at times, a ruthless and aggressive stalker who bobs and weaves his way into throwing powerful hooks and uppercuts. But Lemieux has a pretty decent jab too. And his status as the IBF titleholder gives him instant credibility in a division bereft of many superstars.

When I came back to the US, Rival seemed to have fallen in favor perfectly with the trends at the time. The American brands were getting worse and Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson worse, MMA brands were getting people used to seeing aggressively-designed gloves, and people were willing to pay more for boxing gloves now. I think what helped push people over the fence to try Rival was their adoption of the new “d3o Intelli-Shock technology”, a new cushioning technology that supposedly protected your hands (gloves) and head (headgear) better than traditional cushioning. Whether or not the new cushioning actually worked didn’t matter, it was that customers could see an ACTUALLY NEW FEATURE in boxing gear that previously didn’t exist. For the average consumer who was sick of seeing the same Pakistan clones, to see a new feature was incredibly refreshing.

Welterweight has seen some of boxing’s greatest athletes, including Floyd Mayweather Jr, Errol Spence Jr, Terence Crawford, Felix Trinidad, and Sugar Ray Robinson, the man many consider to be the greatest boxer of all time.

Cruiserweight is one of the newer boxing weight classes, with a limit of 200 pounds. Also known as the junior heavyweight division, it was first created in 1979 by the WBC, with Marvin Camel becoming the inaugural champion in 1980.

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Golovkin’s ex-trainer Abel Sanchez praised him for his work ethic and humility: “He has been that way since I first got him eight years ago. He is humble and shy guy, like you see him now, and it’s actually pretty pleasant to be around somebody like that, who’s not just ‘foam at the mouth’ and trying to say who he’s gonna kill next.” Sanchez also stated that until 2019 Golovkin did not have a strength and conditioning coach or a nutritionist, for he prefers a traditional cuisine and training regimen, and because of Sanchez’s determination to not have any assistants: “Along the track of Gennady being who he has become, I would get consistently emails, and messages, and letters from coaches, and nutritionists, and strength and conditioning coaches, that would tell me that if I use them, and if I bring them in, they promised me that they can make Gennady 50% better than he is right now. Could you imagine that? We couldn’t get fights before! If he was 50% better we wouldn’t be able to get any fights! He would be destroying everybody, there would be nobody that he could fight.”