Vincenzo D’Angelo said although he’s training for an upcoming fight, he still makes time to train young fighters.
The Glen Cove resident helps run a gym in Port Washington where he and his brothers train fighters in boxing, MMA and other styles.
“My gym is my life,” he said. “I don’t have any other hobbies, I don’t go out and party all night.”
On Saturday, D’Angelo, 28, will fight Dequan Burgos in an undercard bout at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum — the first boxing event at the Coliseum since 1986, when Mike Tyson headlined the card.
“I’m just itching to get back in there and perform,” D’Angelo said. “I’ve been getting really excited as every day is counting down. It’s a huge card and I am happy to be on there.”
Jumping around between different fighting styles, training in MMA, boxing, kickboxing and jiu-jitsu, D’Angelo, a super middleweight fighter, won the 2009 Golden Gloves and decided to pursue boxing exclusively.
D’Angelo, who turned professional in 2013 and is 2-0, grew up training with his four brothers and was trained by his father, Michael, a world-champion wrestler, who took home bronze in the Pan American Games.
“This has pretty much been my entire life,” he said. “I’ve trained since I was 10 or 11 years old and my father trained us until we were 16. And we always had each other’s back.”
Using the methods he learned from his father and other trainers, D’Angelo, who was born in Miami, said he enjoys training young athletes and seeing them grow.
“It’s a big satisfaction for me,” he said. “Maybe they come in and they are a little overweight or they are having trouble with something and just want to improve something. But I see their bodies changing as they are getting closer to their ultimate goal. It helps them in life and prepares them.”
He said if he is not helping the people he is training, he is failing.
His gym, Competitive Edge Athletics at 38 Harbor Park Drive in Port Washington, operates every day, D’Angelo said, with people even coming in on holidays.
“They love to work out,” he said.
Balancing his workouts while training other fighters is tough, D’Angelo said, but he “works off everyone else’s schedule.”
On conditioning days, D’Angelo works out from noon to 3 p.m. and trains fighters in the evening, and on sparring days, he works out from 5 to 7 p.m. and trains fighters earlier in the day.
“Whenever I have free time, which isn’t often, I plan out my schedule,” he said.
D’Angelo said he will go into his fight on Saturday in the best shape possible.
“My mentality is always the same, too: Be very smart, don’t make any careless mistakes,” he said. “I always come in the best shape possible.”
During D’Angelo’s 2016 fight against Dan Cion at the Paramount in Huntington, the announcers called his right jab and right hook “brutal.”
He won the fight with a 39-37 judge’s decision and overpowered Cion throughout the fight, landing jab after jab.
