By Thomas Gerbasi

It used to be every young Brooklyn kid’s dream, fighting the big fight in front of a packed arena and winning a world championship. Your friends and family cheering, that special girl smiling, and you, bloodied, battered, but unbowed, getting your hand raised.

William DeMeo had that dream. And now, at 45, he got to live it through his new film “Back in the Day,” which hits select theaters and VOD platforms, including iTunes, today.

“The feeling I got when I was in that ring and doing those boxing scenes with hundreds of extras in the stands, it was the greatest feeling in the world,” DeMeo said. “I had people cheering and it was amazing.”

As Anthony Rodriguez, DeMeo portrays a character who is fighting an uphill battle almost from birth as a half-Puerto Rican half-Italian kid growing up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in the late-80s. The neighborhood was a pressure cooker at times back then and a focal point of news coverage for all the wrong reasons, but it’s a reality that DeMeo, who also wrote and produced the film, didn’t shy away from.

“I want to appeal to all audiences, but the people that will really understand this are people who grew up in that era and who have seen how the neighborhood changed and how it is now,” he said.

It’s truly a Brooklyn tale, warts and all, and it’s told truthfully by the borough native, who, while gearing the film towards those who grew up in that era, still believes it will appeal across all demographic and state lines.

“People are fascinated with this type of thing,” DeMeo said. “I was on the Sopranos, and I remember how popular that show was, and this has that taste too with the street and the wiseguys. So I think it will appeal to people outside of the area. And no matter where you’re from, everyone roots for the person who has to overcome many obstacles, and no matter what your taste is, you’ll come away appreciating how this all comes together and what goes on with this character.”

That’s because the story is spot on, making it not so much a boxing film, but a neighborhood story with boxing as a backdrop. And while boxing royalty like Mike Tyson and Larry Merchant make appearances, several Hollywood heavyweights joined the cast based on the script.

“They liked that it wasn’t typical of what you’ve seen in these boxing-type movies,” DeMeo said. “It started with Michael Madsen, it went to Danny Glover and then it went to Alec Baldwin. Shannen (Doherty) came aboard early on, and it kept snowballing. And the feedback I got was that when the script went out, it got really good coverage from the agencies, and as you know if you watch the movie, it’s different from what you would normally see in these type of movies.”

That means even the boxing scenes aren’t typical. Or more accurately, the placement and pace of the in-ring action isn’t what you would normally expect.

“We’ve seen these boxing films so many times and it’s been done and it’s been done well, and it’s hard to duplicate it,” DeMeo said. “So I wanted it to be more about the backstory and the struggle in other ways. I tried to get to the point as much as I could with the boxing. I wanted to make everything move. I wanted the story to move quickly instead of us all waiting for the championship fight that lasts 20 minutes on the screen, and it’s in slow motion and the character’s probably going to win or lose in the last round. The boxing is there and people love it and they want to see us in the ring, but I wanted to make it move.”

It does, with enough compelling action going on outside the ring that there’s not that desire to say “let’s move it and get to the fight.” But when it came to stepping through the ropes, DeMeo didn’t cut corners, estimating that he trained two hours a day every day for over a year at the Morris Park Boxing Club in the Bronx.

“I took it really seriously, and I feel like I pulled off the character the best I possibly could and I think people will hopefully agree with that,” he said. “When you actually start training and conditioning with boxing and you’re doing everything for three minutes, the conditioning is unbelievable. I would leave the gym some days and I couldn’t even lift my arms, but it’s such a great feeling because I knew that I was getting there.”

And now it’s here, and DeMeo got to live out that childhood dream. In the process, he realized that while the setting was a boxing ring, the road to the top in the fight game can be applied to any endeavor in life.

“What’s going on in that film relates to me in a lot of ways personally,” he said. “Everything that the character goes through on the screen and what he deals with in his life, I feel like as a filmmaker and an actor, I’ve been through the same s**t. (Laughs) There’s so much you go through when you’re trying to break through in the toughest industry in the world. And it’s the same for the character who’s trying to break through in the boxing world, which is the toughest thing you can do.”