Boxing Profile: A Gentleman, But Not Gentle

By Josh Stewart courtesy of the Long Island Press

Long Island Heavyweight Rossy Knows He’s In The Pain Game

It’s 10:45 a.m., and the BQE is a parking lot.

You wait for the angst to rise in the pit of Derric Rossy’s stomach, as he’s running late for his workout at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn. After all, a heavyweight contender, as he readily admits, “beats people up for a living.”

Instead, he keeps his cool and lets three cars merge.

“I never had any issues with inner anger,” explains the former Patchogue-Medford High School football star-turned Boston College defensive end-turned New York State Heavyweight Champion. “I’m about the least-confrontational person you’d meet.”

And there’s the rub. Let’s be honest: Boxing’s stars often have juvie records to match their win-loss records. They have their anti-psychotic meds hidden from them. They’re bad men from “The Street.”

Rossy? Well, he has a degree from BC, a teaching certification in history—his fave subject—and two devoted parents, Carlos and Carmen, with whom he still lives and who always reminded him that his bedroom wasn’t really clean until he vacuumed. Not exactly the thug life.

In the middle of this traffic quagmire, Rossy laughs more than once, calls his high school sweetheart, Dana, to check on her laryngitis, then shows his only concern over the time when he asks me if the unexpected long trip will screw up my schedule.

Derric Rossy is one helluva nice guy. But can a guy like this someday be the heavyweight champion of the world?

“I don’t want somebody to come in my house and steal everything,” Rossy says when explaining the “switch” that goes off in him when the bell is about to toll. “When I get in the ring I feel like the other guy is trying to take away everything I’ve worked for. You’re going to have to beat me down to nothing and I’m still gonna come after you after that.”

And he really does beat them like they stole something. Just ask Gary Bell, who Rossy defeated for the NYS belt at the Huntington Hilton last February. Rossy and Bell are friends, and after Rossy had dropped his foe twice in the second round, you wondered if the nice guy would kick in.

One vicious right uppercut with two seconds left in the round put a strap around Rossy’s waist, placed smelling salts in Bell’s nostrils and should have easily quelled anyone’s concerns.

“Bob [Jackson, Rossy’s trainer] gets mad at me because he says I don’t get mean enough when I’m sparring,” Rossy says. “He never has that problem with me when I fight.”

Gleason’s dank and dark features do have a way of keeping someone on edge, no matter how pleasant his family life is. Rossy pounds notches into a heavy bag that has the name of former undisputed welterweight champ Zab “Super” Judah stitched on it, a subtle but telling reminder that as much as he’s accomplished, he still has a ways to go.

Jackson sits in a chair five feet away, wearing a blue Everlast silk ring jacket that appears to have missed soap since the Carter administration. He rides Rossy a bit, telling him to keep his balance on his overhand right so he can still throw combinations.

But then Jackson turns to me and says, “He makes it look easy, doesn’t he?”

A 12-0 pro mark does make it appear easy. But unlike his football origins, where you can get away with taking one play off, one mental slip can put years of hard work in the garbage.

And Rossy likes it that way.

“Bob always tells me, ‘If someone locked you in a room and threw a cobra in there, would you look away? If you do, it’ll bite you and run away where you won’t know where it is,'” he says.

For all his patience, all his kindness, Rossy looks across the ring and sees thieves and venomous creatures. They shouldn’t expect any mercy.

“I’m in the pain business,” Rossy says. “I’ll be nice to the guy after the fight. I’ll help him find a doctor.”

Talking about his training with Jackson, Rossy adds, “Once you create a monster, you sometimes don’t know what to do with it. Bob’s trying to be Frankenstein.”

Here’s hoping you meet Rossy on the BQE instead of the ring.

You can contact Josh Stewart at jstewart@longislandpress.com.

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