Badou Jack: I Don't Want To Be a Paper Champ - I Want To Be Great

By Thomas Gerbasi

It doesn’t mean much in the great scheme of things, but as an aside to the first big fight of 2017, you might wonder who the fans in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center will be cheering for on Saturday, England’s James DeGale or Sweden native Badou Jack.

Well, as a brief resident of Kings County, Jack might have an early edge.

“Right after the Olympics, in early 2009, I came here to Brooklyn to train at Gleason’s Gym and see about turning pro and getting a contract with a manager or promoter,” Jack recalls.  “So it started here. I remember taking the train to the gym every day and now I’m headlining here at the Barclays, so it’s a blessing.”

That three-month stay didn’t produce much for the 2008 Olympian, but after returning home, turning pro and winning his first five fights in Europe, he happened to meet a Brooklynite, Shannon Briggs.

“He’s the guy who actually discovered me and brought me to America,” Jack said of the former heavyweight titlist, and he hasn’t looked back. These days, the WBC super middleweight champion makes his home in Las Vegas, and you have to wonder if he would have been the same fighter had he remained in Sweden. Jack doesn’t wonder at all.

“Absolutely not. I want to thank America for taking me in and helping me become the fighter that I am today.”

This Saturday’s bout is almost full circle for the 33-year-old, who not only comes back to Brooklyn for the first time since those days after the Olympics, but he’ll be fighting on a card co-promoted by his former promoter, Lou DiBella. It was while working with DiBella that Jack had his last fight in New York City, a 2012 win over Grover Young that lifted his record to 10-0.

That night, Jack got a taste of life in the wild west of boxing, as he faced a fighter who weighed in at 183 pounds to Jack’s 172. But then and now, his focus remained unchanged.

“I always had a goal and I had a good team behind me, and that’s the goal you gotta have, to become a world champion,” he said. “It’s one fight at a time though.”

And while Jack patiently moved up the ranks, he did everything asked of him, even as he watched fighters with less talent get more opportunities to shine.

“You’ve got to be patient in life, and not just when it comes to boxing,” he said. “This is God’s plan, and even for me to have that loss, it made me stronger and made me a better fighter.”

“That loss” was a crushing one, a 2014 defeat at the hands of Derek Edwards that saw him stopped in the first round and sent tumbling down the super middleweight ladder. Yet like DeGale bouncing back from his loss to George Groves to nab championship gold, Jack did the same, defeating Jason Escalera and Francisco Sierra to earn a bout against WBC champ Anthony Dirrell in April 2015.

“Because of that loss, people were overlooking me, and I probably wouldn’t have gotten a title shot,” he said. “Anthony Dirrell wouldn’t probably have fought me if I didn’t have a loss.”

Dirrell did take the fight, though, and he lost, Jack winning a majority decision and the title. In his last two fights, he successfully defended his crown with a win over Groves and a draw against Lucian Bute, and while he could have gone in another direction, instead, Jack accepted the unification fight against DeGale.

“I want to be great,” he said. “I don’t want to be a paper champion, I want to fight the best there is and take on the biggest challenges. For me in this weight class, there’s James DeGale. He’s the biggest fight for me in this weight, the best fight that can be made. I want to test myself against the best. I don’t want to fight the guys everybody thinks and I already know I’m gonna beat. I want to be the underdog. I could have moved up to 175 already and fought somebody easier, but I want the biggest and toughest fight.”

And that’s where that full circle really comes into focus, as it was DeGale that Jack was supposed to fight in a title eliminator before he lost to Edwards. This weekend, he gets his chance.

“Everything happens for a reason,” Jack said. “We go back to the amateurs, me and him, so I knew we were gonna fight one day and I guess it wasn’t that time back then. An accident happened, I lost the fight (to Edwards), but now we’re here and the sky’s the limit.”