By Thomas Gerbasi
This wasn’t a Hollywood movie taking place in the heart of Staten Island, New York. Gary Stark Jr. had seen a steady stream of kids coming in and out of Atlas Cops ‘N Kids gym for a while. Some came in to stay busy after school, others to keep away from the temptations of the street. It wasn’t built to be a place where world champions were born. So the then-unbeaten super bantamweight prospect didn’t blink an eye the first time he ran into 13-year-old Marcus Browne.
“You know how many times I saw Marcus stop and come back?” laughs Stark, who, like Browne, is trained by his father, Gary Stark Sr. “My father’s such a hard dude, and if you can really deal with him yelling at you and stuff like that, that’s an extra point to you. Nobody gets it worse than me, and everybody knows that, but Marcus is like my father’s son too, so he gets it as well.”
And just like that, two fighters – one a teenager, another an established pro – began a bond that would lead them to become like brothers in the world’s hardest game.
Eleven years after that initial meeting, Browne, 24, and Stark, 35, will fight on the same card for the first time, traveling up I-95 to the Foxwoods Resort in Connecticut to battle foes on the undercard of another New Yorker, Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin, this Saturday.
“It’s unbelievable,” Stark said. “To see this kid from when he was a boy, and now he’s signing autographs and 15-0 and an Olympian, that’s unreal.”
“It’s a beautiful thing and it just goes to show that time is precious and you just have to seize every moment,” Browne said.
The two representatives of New York City’s forgotten borough come to September 12 from different directions. Browne is the 2012 U.S. Olympian on the rise with a perfect pro record and the influential backing of Al Haymon. Stark is on the second fight of his comeback, hoping to show that he still has what it takes to battle and beat the best featherweights in the world. The common bond is still their trainer, and yes, Browne agrees, it is like having a father in the corner.
“The dynamic of our relationship is crazy,” he laughs. “You know how fathers and sons get.
But you’ve got to appreciate a guy like Gary Stark Sr. because there’s not a lot of trainers out there like him. He took me all over the country and practically raised me, besides my mom and stepdad doing their job. Him and Pat Russo were two guys that made me a man in the sport of boxing and I want to bring them to the promised land and win a world title together.”
Browne is on the right track, doing what is asked of him on fight night and beating a varied array of opponents – some awkward, some straightforward, but all necessary to beat before he takes the next step in his career. Saturday’s foe is former light heavyweight champion Gabriel Campillo, who may be just 4-4 in his last eight, but when those losses have been to Sergey Kovalev, Andrzej Fonfara, Tavoris Cloud and Artur Beterbiev, you can almost give the Spain native a pass. Whether the 36-year-old is done or not will be up to Browne to find out this weekend.
“On paper, he’s the toughest guy and I’m not taking anybody lightly,” Browne said. “I’ve trained hard for him and now I’m ready to go get that win. I saw a couple fights of his, but I leave that (tape watching) mostly up to my trainers, because my job is to go in there and fight and do what I do best and not worry about what he’s going to do.”
A win will be the latest news item of an interesting 2015 for “Sir” Marcus. He’s won twice, defeating Aaron Pryor Jr. and Cornelius White, but the most important moment was becoming a father for the first time. That will alter the world of anyone, Browne included.
“Things just got realer, so I’ve got to stay focused even more and my road to the world title has that much more strength to it,” he said. “This year has been a tough one inside and outside the ring for me, but I reflect a lot of it on my career and how I have to start carrying myself in the ring. You’ve got to deal with it, and just move on, not show it, and get stronger as you go, because moving forward, only the strong will survive, and the weak will fail. And I cannot fail. I put my all into this, and now it’s the time of my life. I have to bite down and really give it my all.”
Stark has seen the growth in his friend.
“He’s such a strong kid, mentally and physically,” he said. “He’s dealt with a lot of stuff, and I can see now that he’s really becoming a man inside that ring. And that’s a big key. Now he’s getting into betting positions, and he’ll be stepping up pretty soon.”
“Kid” also knows all about the whole fatherhood thing, with he and his wife Kristie having brought their baby girl Toni into the world in November of 2013. The birth of his daughter was a catalyst in the New Yorker calling off his comeback a few days later, but the itch to give it one more shot brought him back earlier this year, and while he got a tough fight out of Jose Silveria, he did get the victory, improving his pro record to 24-3 with 8 KOs.
This Saturday the three-time New York Golden Gloves winner takes on Kenya native Anthony Napunyi, and while a win over a 15-15 opponent normally wouldn’t do much other than provide a paycheck, what Stark does with a good performance is extend this comeback and give Al Haymon a reason to bring him back on another PBC card.
“As soon as we found out that Al would work with me, that’s when the skies parted and God came down,” Stark laughs before attempting to sing the musical equivalent of the skies parting and God coming down. It wasn’t pretty, and you realize why he became a fighter and not a singer. After that realization, he thankfully stops and says, “Now we’re in a better position than we were two months ago.”
He may be in a better position than he’s ever been in, considering PBC’s place in the current boxing world. Stark knows what that feels like, as back in his early days, he had the high-powered machine behind him, and even was part of the group signed with Damon Dash and Lou DiBella. That’s when Browne first met Stark, and back then, that was a BIG deal.
“That was the biggest movement in the hip hop community,” Browne recalls. “He (Stark) used to give me free clothes and it was such an amazing thing. I used to go to the Hammerstein Ballroom and it was packed, and that’s even when Kid Chocolate was coming up and Andre Berto too. So I got to see a lot of those guys in the beginning, and him (Stark) being a major part of that whole group of guys, it was a motivation for me to see that first hand.”
Now the motivations are different, but the same as well, because both involve winning. For Browne, he wants to hit the peak of the sport and become a world champion. Stark believes he has what it takes.
“The way he trains, anything is possible with this kid,” he said. “He’s so athletic and he can punch. He’s just got to stay true to the game. And I don’t see him doing anything other than that. He trains super hard, he has a personal trainer and he’s been with my father a lot, and I’ve seen him deal with adversity and he always comes out on top.”
As for Stark, this run isn’t about world titles or being in the Hall of Fame. It’s about being a fighter. For himself.
“Right now I’m trying to just do the best I can, have fun again and put on a show.”
