NEW YORK – When Julius Ballo was ready to make the leap to the professionals, he didn’t want to follow the traditional route.
As a celebrated amateur with international gold medals to his credit, the 22-year-old from San Diego could pick and choose whichever promotional entity he wanted to guide his career. Instead of one, he picked two, siding with Top Rank and Overtime Boxing.
His alliance with Top Rank provided a home for his pro debut, which is set for July 26 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. Ballo will appear on the preliminary undercard preceding the Xander Zayas-Jorge Garcia WBO junior middleweight title fight.
Asked why he decided to sign with two different promotional companies, Ballo said it all came about after a conversation with his manager.
James Prince, a record label mogul who founded Rap-A-Lot Records, is largely credited with mentoring Drake from a MySpace musician to a global entertainment figure. Ballo says that’s the vision for the scale he wants in his career.
“I asked him, how did Drake get to this level, you being involved with his team?” Ballo said. “He said in the beginning of his career, he didn’t just sign with one record label; he worked with more than one big company to help promote his music. I told J-Prince, ‘Why don’t we work with multiple promotional companies?’
“I got approached by Top Rank, Overtime and a couple different promotions. Then we ended up going through with Top Rank and Overtime. That’s how everything came together.”
In his current situation, Ballo has the best of both worlds. Top Rank is a promotional company with 50 years of experience under its belt. Overtime is an upstart that has mastered the use of social media to promote its athletes.
Both will be proudly represented by Ballo when he takes on Brandan Ayala, a 19-year-old from North Carolina with a record of 2-0 (1 KO), in a featherweight bout. Ballo’s pro debut comes a few months later than expected, after he withdrew from a planned fight in his hometown in March because of a hand injury.
The occasion comes on the heels of his rich amateur career, which includes the type of résumé that requires a reader to click “read more” on the USA Boxing website.
A multiple-time national champion, Ballo ended his amateur career on what would have been a high note for most, winning all 25 scorecards in a five-fight sweep of the 2024 National Golden Gloves. For many boxers, that would be a dream conclusion; for Ballo, it was an anticlimax.
After winning gold at the 2021 Junior Pan American Games in the 57-kilogram division, Ballo felt he should have gotten the opportunity to represent the United States at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile. The latter served as the continental qualifier for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
Instead of Ballo, the United States fielded Jahmal Harvey, whom Ballo had beaten by split decision in their only previous bout at the 2022 USA Boxing International Invitational. Harvey went on to win gold in Chile and earned a spot in the Olympics, where he would lose in the quarterfinals.
For Ballo, the sting of not being picked for the Olympics remains.
“I got cheated by USA Boxing,” said Ballo. “I punched my ticket in 2021 at the Junior Pan American Games for the 2023 Pan American Games, but they took Jahmal to that tournament, which was basically illegal. That should not have been allowed.”
Mike McAtee, president of USA Boxing, which oversees U.S. amateur boxing, told BoxingScene that the qualification guidelines state that the National Olympic Committee for the country that earned the gold medal in Chile, not the boxer themselves, would be automatically qualified for the 2023 Games.
Both Ballo and Harvey, who went on to win the 2021 World Championships in Serbia, would take part in the selection camp, but it was Harvey who was named to the 2023 High Performance Team.
“I was devastated,” Ballo said. “I beat everyone that they put in front of me. I went to 2021, 2022 and 2023 National Championships. I won all three of them. I faced Jahmal Harvey the Olympian and I beat him. And they didn’t give me my ticket to qualify for the Olympics, so I was very upset.
“At the same time, you gotta move forward. You gotta trust in God and believe that there’s a plan, and that’s why we’re at where we’re at today.”
Missing out on his Olympic dream didn’t mean giving up on boxing, however.
Boxing has been in his family for generations. Julius’ father, Yasir Ballo – a Chaldean who immigrated from Iraq at age 10 – also boxed in the amateurs. He was forced to hang up his gloves or miss out on taking part in the family business, which today includes owning restaurants and Bomber Squad Boxing Academy.
Julius first put gloves on at the age of 3, and immediately took to the sport.
“He took me to the gym at two weeks old just to smell it,” Julius said of his father. “That was crazy when I heard that. I fell in love with winning.
“We started to travel, went to the USA Boxing tournaments, and I started to shine. I felt like this is the reason God put me on this Earth, to box and spread his word through boxing.”
Now, Ballo, who has been trained by coach Berlin Kerney since he was 6 years old, has a new challenge ahead of him heading into the professional ranks.
As an amateur, Ballo’s mastery of distance and angles, coupled with quick hands and timing, made him virtually unbeatable. But how will his style translate to the pro game, where there is a premium on hurting an opponent?
Ballo says he has heard the criticism and has been adjusting his style for the pros.
“A lot of people say I’m not gonna do well in the pros,” noted Ballo. “A lot of people said I’m not gonna perform the way I need to in the pros. My response to that is, I had to do what I had to do in the amateurs to win. It was very successful.
“Now, I have to make my adjustments and my tweaks to do what I have to do in the pros. It’s a totally different game now, and I understand that.”
Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, in a press release earlier this year to announce the signing of Ballo, didn’t seem concerned about how he would fare as a pro.
“Julius Ballo is the entire package, a sensational young fighter with the ability and personality to be a superstar in the sport,” said Arum.
Ballo has new goals, which coincidentally, are the same as the old goals:
“Making history, great things and just being No. 1,” Ballo said. “I want to be No. 1 in everything I do.”
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.
