There was a time when revenge was the primary motivating factor for Elijah Lugo each time he stepped into the ring. He remembers the first time he stepped into the ring at age six, challenged by his father Mike to put down the iPad and get off the sidelines, only for another kid to knock him clean out of the ring.

“I was crying and I didn’t want to do it again. But I was in the gym every day and I started doing the workouts,” remembers Lugo of Marietta, Georgia.

“I feel like the idea of revenge, it motivated me and it kept me wanting to get stronger and stronger.”

As 2Pac once asserted, there are but few pleasures in life sweeter than revenge, and eventually Lugo got his taste and more, dominating the young counterpart who had previously left him in tears.

Now, Lugo has more than evened the score with the sport. At just age 18, he is a 26-time national champion with five international championships, including a gold medal at the 2024 World Boxing U19 Championships in Pueblo, Colorado.

With nothing more to prove in the amateurs, Lugo turns his attention to the professional ranks this Saturday, as he prepares to face Andre Johnson, 2-2 (2 KOs), in a four-round bout at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. The middleweight bout will be part of this week’s ProBox TV card, which airs live at 6 p.m. ET. 

Lugo decided to make the leap to the pros after consulting with his manager, David McWater, who advised him that he had raised his marketability as far as possible, with the Olympics still three years away.

“To be honest it was a little sad because I was told after this world tournament that there’s not much else I can do to build more money. So after I took my fifth gold medal and won the Youth Worlds, I said it’s time. I’ve taken over the world in the amateurs. Time to move on,” said Lugo, whose older brother, Nathan Lugo, is a 3-0 (3 KOs) super middleweight pro with a couple dozen national titles to his credit as well.

Long before he was racking up titles on the world stage, Lugo was struggling to find his identity in the ring. He first started competing at age eight - the minimum age for USA Boxing - and compiled 13 straight losses to start his career. His father Mike, who owns Lugo Boxing in Marietta, Georgia, began to question whether he had made the right decision to put his son in boxing. He made a deal with Elijah - get through with this 14th fight of the year in Arkansas, and then we’ll go to vacation in Florida. If Elijah didn’t want to box anymore, that’d be fine, but if he did renew his pass book, he’d be committed for another year.

“The year was closing out and I was kind of questioning myself as a father, was I keeping him in boxing for myself or was I doing the right thing?,” Mike Lugo remembers asking himself.

“We go to this fight and he wins. Gets his hands raised, gets this cheap plastic belt that is still one of his favorite belts to this day. His whole energy shifted after that win. Just getting that victory but also knowing what it was like to lose just molded him into this boxer that he is today.”

Having an older brother who is also a boxer brings some advantages with it. For instance, Elijah was able to pick his brother’s brain about what to expect in the pros, from the atmosphere to how different the ring walk can feel. It can also mean being in the right place at the right time, just as he was in October of 2020, when he accompanied Nathan to Vrbas, Serbia for the Nations Junior Cup. Elijah, then just 14, was two years under the minimum age requirement to compete in the tournament, but that requirement was waived by organizers because they were short on boxers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the Lugos were the only Americans to compete in the tournament, and both went home with gold medals.

When asked to describe what makes his son Elijah a prospect to watch for, Michael Lugo points to his jab, which he describes as “Triple G-like.”

“He is nonstop action and he is coming to fight. He cuts the ring off well. A lot of these guys that are really slick, they might get away with it for a few rounds but he’s gonna press the action, he’s gonna land body shots and he’s gonna test people’s spirits,” said Michael Lugo.

“I think within four to six years we’re gonna be holding multiple titles; he’s gonna be a major, major star. His personality is very aggressive and he falls very much into the bad guy role. He’s really OK with that and so are we.”

While revenge was his original motivation, Elijah Lugo has found a new reason to keep fighting and training as hard as ever.

“To be honest with you, I do just like punching people, hurting them, breaking them down,” shared Lugo.

“When I got my first win, it felt incredible but it didn’t feel good because I won; it kinda felt good because the other person lost. That’s my thing. I don’t really care about winning too much. I just really want the other person to lose.”

Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.