Angelo Leo’s Knockout of the Year contender to win the IBF featherweight title from Luis Alberto Lopez remains the highlight of Leo’s career.
It isn’t a moment he will claim as indescribable. Flattening a reigning beltholder to become a two-division titlist in his Albuquerque, New Mexico, hometown was the storybook ending Leo always had in mind and he lived his dream in August.
Advertisement
There was a point, however, when it was unclear whether that moment would arrive.
A 29-month gap between Leo’s first chapter and the start of his current run cast doubt over whether he would ever make his way back into the ring.
“Those two years were a pretty tough time in my life and especially in my career,” Leo told Uncrowned.
A January 2021 loss to Stephen Fulton was a bitter pill to swallow, but not an insurmountable obstacle. It remains the lone blemish on Leo’s record (25-1, 12 KOs) and also ended his WBO junior featherweight title reign. Leo bounced back with a 10-round unanimous decision over Aaron Alameda five months later.
Advertisement
Yet the win not only failed to resonate, but it would mark his last fight for more than two years.
More than a year into a forced inactive stretch, Leo, 31, wondered if that would be the final time he would enter the ring. Of the greatest concerns at the time was how to provide for his family. His girlfriend was pregnant with their son.
Angelo Leo (left) exchanges punches with Aaron Alameda during their junior featherweight fight at Toyota Center on June 19, 2021, in Houston. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
(Carmen Mandato via Getty Images)
Boxing had always been Leo’s everything, but nothing was happening.
“I wasn’t fighting. Boxing is my livelihood,” said Leo, whose first amateur fight came at age 11. “It’s what I do to put food on the table. I wasn’t getting fights and it was frustrating. On top of that, I was having a son. My girlfriend was pregnant with our son. A lot of things were running through my mind about how to provide for them.
Advertisement
“At one point, I was ready to focus on real estate and just put boxing on the backburner, stuff like that. It was a little tough time for me.”
There was a point in Leo’s life when he and his father had to sleep in their van because they didn’t have money for hotel stays while in training camp out of state.
Then came the call to begin the second act.
ProBox TV — formed by Garry Jonas in 2022 — has helped fill a void in boxing after giants HBO and Showtime exited the sport. Both came years after the disappearance of iconic series such as “ESPN Friday Night Fights” and “USA Tuesday Night Fights.”
Advertisement
Leo was among the many fighters able to join the new wave. He has arguably prospered the most from the platform’s emergence.
The stretch with his current backers began with a November 2023 ninth-round stoppage of Nicolas Polanco at the ProBox Event Center in Plant City, Florida. It was the first of four straight wins, three inside the distance, including his memorable 10th-round knockout of Mexicali’s Lopez to become a two-division champion.
Even heading into the fight, Leo felt like a man reborn. He’d already conquered the darkest patch of his adult life. Nothing in the ring was going to faze him — especially now that climbing through the ropes is back to being a regular occurrence.
Advertisement
The trick was always how he would get to that point when the well was dry and the phone didn’t ring.
“I didn’t really have a [hobby] to get me through those times,” said Leo, who now lives and trains in Las Vegas. “I stuck with boxing, training in the gym because boxing is my life. But I wasn’t really giving it my 100%. It was hard for me to fully commit because I didn’t have any fight lined up, so I just felt like I was going through the motions.
“Once I got that phone call that I was going to fight again in late in 2023, I seized that opportunity at all costs. I pulled through. I persevered and returned to boxing. Garry Jonas and ProBox got my career, and I’m very grateful for them getting behind my career.”
ProBox TV will be the U.S. outlet for Leo’s next fight as he transitions from a hometown title win to a dangerous first defense on the road.
Advertisement
Leo will face former WBO bantamweight title-holder Tomoki Kameda (42-4, 23 KOs) on Saturday in his mandatory challenger’s hometown of Osaka, Japan.
The 33-year-old challenger is the youngest of three fighting brothers who made history more than a decade ago. Tomoki and older siblings Koki and Daiki Kameda entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the first family trio to win world titles and then again as the only set to simultaneously hold major belts.
Success at that level hasn’t come as freely for Kameda since he’s moved up in weight. Still, he’s never been stopped in 46 career fights and is in the same position Leo enjoyed less than 10 months ago — hometown advantage against a visiting titleholder.
“Knocking him out would make a great statement, to be honest. I won’t put that type of pressure on myself, though,” Leo insisted. “It would really make a statement to knock him out, especially fighting in his hometown. Beating him in his hometown to defend my world title, though, is all I’m really thinking about.”
Advertisement
Leo views his business trip to Japan as a bucket-list item. He gets to defend his belt in a country he never thought he’d get the chance to visit, much less get paid to do so.
For as far down as he was only a few years ago, nothing about this weekend will be taken for granted.
That same mindset carries into every training session, which wasn’t necessarily the case for much of the first 10 years of his career.
“I’m pushing my body to the limit this second part of my career,” Leo said. “I don’t feel like I gave it that same commitment in my first part. Now I’m training like the greats, training like Floyd Mayweather, like [Oscar] De La Hoya, like Manny Pacquiao.
“I want to be that great, so I have to do everything it takes to get there. I’ve been given this second chance for a reason. I can’t waste any of it.”
Read the full article here
