Boxley Ready To Entertain Fans
By Jesse Kelley
March 19th, 2008

26 year old Wilshaun Boxley has been turning heads at boxing events for years. Considered to be one of the the most skilled fighters in the country as an amateur, (3 Upper Midwest championships and most recently winning the 2007 USA four state tournament championship) Boxley has now begun his quest as a professional boxer. Boxley dreams of making a name for himself like many other fighters, but above all else, the confident featherweight says he just wants to entertain boxing fans that come to see him put on a show.
After exciting fans with a third round stoppage of Reymundo Hernandez in his pro debut, Boxley traveled to Chicago to face durable Mexican brawler Barbaro Zepeda last February where he produced what most felt (excluding one local judge) was a lopsided boxing lesson over his experienced opponent.
Boxley discussed his first two pro fights and also what he plans to do in the ring in 2008.
Here is what Boxley had to say...

People that have followed you throughout the amateurs and now the pros agree that you are an exciting fighter to watch that brings Pretty Boy Floyd like skills to the ring. Describe yourself as a boxer.
I consider myself to be a defensive minded fighter. I always give my fans a show by thinking offense first but I believe good defense creates good offense. I am definitely not a boring counter puncher who sits there and tries to counter punch you, that is kind of disgusting to me (laughing)! You know, Klitscho is one of the best heavyweights out there but in his last fight his fans were upset with him because he didn't go for the knockout. He was happy with just winning the fight. I don't want to be that type of person. I want to excite the fans. Each time out there I want to do something different.

You made your pro debut back in November in Saint Paul. Run us through that experience.
I felt good for the fight. I had a chance to train for about a month leading up to it. Before that I hadn't been training for about four or five months due to all the stuff happening in my life. I felt pretty confident about taking the fight though. When I was in there, I was thinking I wanted to take my time and feel my opponent out, and thats what I did. I landed some big shots early on and I felt right away that he couldn't take my punches. A few times he tried throwing in some headbutts because he was feeling kind of desperate. I think my first opponent was a little green behind the ears though. I got the feeling he didn't have that much experience before our fight. After the fight, everybody else seemed a lot happier then I did. I was pretty skeptical about him as an opponent. If he was a better opponent I would have felt like I could celebrate a little more.
I really wanted to feel the difference from going from amateur to professional but I really didn't get to see the difference in that fight.
Sometimes you see great amateurs turn pro and not do so well. They feel the leather and can't take it. When I am in the gym, I spar with much bigger guys so I know what it is like to be in there with guys that can hit. Unfortunately my first opponent didn't have more to come at me with. I do want to thank the guys at ACR for getting me that fight though. I wouldn't have had the chance if it wasn't for them. I had a lot of stuff going on at the time and things probably would have gotten worse if I didn't get that chance.

Let's touch on your second fight which was in Chicago. Compare that fight to your pro debut.
My second fight felt a lot more professional. The guy had almost 30 fights. He was ten times better then the first guy I fought. He had a lot more experience, in fact HE tried to walk ME down and I am the type of fighter that wants to walk you down. He wasn't able to succeed though. All he could do was open up with his punches which were more technical then the first guy. It was good though because that allowed me to use my defensive maneuvers to open up on him and land the cleaner shots. It made me look a lot better then I did in my first fight.

I heard you outboxed Barbaro Zepeda hands down. Talk about the judges only awarding you a majority decision in a fight you feel you won convincingly.
I was surprised. I think the judges gave him credit for throwing punches even though they didn't land. I wooped him so bad. There were a few rounds that I wooped him so bad they should have been scored 10-8. He threw a lot but wasn't able to land on me. It was a good experience for me though. I took two good left hooks and one good right hand in the fight that landed flush. I was still there and still pushing him in the pocket. I kept feeding him the uppercuts and right crosses. I almost had him out of there in the third round. It was just one of those fights were I was wondering how he even got one of the judges to score it a draw? If you go to anybody's backyard, you are going to have to woop their butt, and that's what I did.
Going into that fourth round, I kept thinking about when I would spar with Corey Rodriquez. Corey would always do this thing like he's jogging, jogging on the heavybag or something and then he would break out with the bigger punches at the end. So I started jogging on the guy in there. I let him break out with his big punches and just pop him, pop..pop. I let him tire out and then broke out with some of my biggest punches. The first and second rounds I had hands down. The third round was kind of close even though I almost knocked him out. Each round I kept building.
But when that first judge had even scores I was shocked. The whole place started booing.
It was a good experience for me though in Chicago. It was very professional. Some judges just see something else I guess. I got the decision and that is the most important thing.

What is the plan for 2008?
Ideally I would like to fight at least once a month. I need to be fighting more then just three or four times a year. I am hungry to fight. Last year was rough on me and I thank god for giving me the chance to do this and try to make a living. I am going to be training a lot harder this year. I won a lot of amateur championships training half way but I am going to be training a lot more professionally now that I have my life on track. This is a new year for me and I want to entertain the fans. I want to make money and also make history. I don't want to be one of those fighters who just say " I used to fight", I want to make my mark in the game. I want to make my name branded. I am not in the game just to fight. I am in it to make my mark.

Plus I hear you have a little more motivation on the way..
Yes, I have a little baby on the way! I am staying with my girl now and she is a big reason why I am doing better and staying out of trouble. In a few years, I plan on owning a house and my own business. Then I can start giving back to the community and not just doing things for myself. Give back to the fans and the people who give to me at my fights. I love coming out to the cheers when I fight. That is what got me in this game anyways. My cousins fought and when I heard the fans cheering them I was hooked!

Wilshaun closed the interview by once again thanking his friends, family, the people that worked with him in preparation for his fights and also the fans for all the support. Unfortunately my recorder died on me and I was unable to salvage the rest of our interview. I would like to thank Wilshaun for taking the time to do this interview!
Boxley is slated to fight on April 26th in Rochester, MN