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It's Now or Never for Richie Daunt

Tue, 06/25/2019 - 17:16
If he gets into the gym more, he ought to beat everyone he fights, Richie Daunt, above under the Brooklyn Bridge with a Cinco de Mayo belt he won at Gleason’s Gym, has been told by his trainer, Mike Vargas.
Mike Vargas

Richie Daunt, the wiry, hard-punching fighter from Montauk, has since losing a quarterfinal-round Golden Gloves match last winter fought four times, winning two and losing two, and is looking forward to a regional tournament early next month whose winners are to advance to the nationals, whose winners, in turn, are to go on to the Olympic trials.

“I want to have at least 50 fights before I go pro,” said Daunt after having overseen a boxing session at the MuvStrong fitness studio in the One-Stop complex here Sunday morning. “I’ve got 24 under my belt now.”

His most recent fight was Friday, at Church Street Boxing in New York City. “I didn’t win,” he said, “though a lot of people thought I should have. . . . The guy I fought, Christian Otero, from the Bronx, was a lot more experienced than me, though I knocked his mouthpiece out twice in the second round. We fought at 152, which is heavy for me. I’m supposed to fight at 141. I’ve been eating too much. They say you can’t out-train your diet.”

His trainer was happy, said Daunt, but he wasn’t. “I was backing him up, though I could have been more aggressive. It was good. We both were moving good, it was good style, a good matchup. It was very close. He was humble — no attitude like some of these guys have. He’s going pro and I think he’ll do well, for sure. When you have a lot of amateur background you do good in the pros.” 

Since last interviewed, he had fought on April 12, April 27, May 4, and Friday, he said, the Cinco de Mayo Battle for the Belts win at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn being one of his biggest wins to date. “I fought a guy, Brian Jones, who weighed 160 — I was at 150. We were supposed to be fighting at 152.”

His amateur boxing results, Daunt agreed, had been mixed, “though remember, I didn’t start competing until I was 23, and a lot of the fights have been close. I’m 28 now, so there’s not a helluva lot more time.”

What he really needed to do, he said, was spar more. “I live an hour and a half from the gym [Vargas Boxing in Patchogue], and the guys I’m fighting, guys from Brooklyn and the Bronx, live five minutes from a gym. In one block in the Bronx there are five gyms. My trainer [Mike Vargas] tells me I could beat everyone I fight if I’m in the gym more. He wants me there. I’m way sharper when I’m in the gym. The only way to build your endurance is not by running but by sparring. I can row, I can run, I can do anything, but you get tired if you haven’t sparred. It builds up your stamina. If you stop for a few months, you’re back to zero.”

That having been said, he will try to head up to the gym on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, “maybe four times a week as the summer goes on. But I know all the kids there, so we don’t really go 100 percent. Mike Vargas will take me to other gyms, though, where we’ll go 100 percent. It’s almost like a fight, though it’s not on the record.”

The only boxer Daunt spars with out here is Juan Mancilla, “at a ring in a house in Quogue owned by the guy who owns Hill Street Boxing” in Southampton. “Juan’s fighting pro on July 19, at the Paramount in Huntington. He’ll be down to 147 [welterweight] for that. He trains in Syosset.”

When he turns pro, “after the Metros, a big city tournament, in October, and after my fourth time at the Golden Gloves in January, I’m definitely going no higher than 141. . . . I’m more powerful at 141, definitely. The guys who fight at 152 are coming down from 165 — they’re huge.” The whole thing, he said, was to “come down, come down.”

It was, he said, “now or never. I’m 28. A lot of these kids are 21, 22, young. . . . I want to fight a bunch this year . . . three or four times a month.”

He’s got to get into the gym more, boxer says

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