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Making your professional boxing debut in your hometown might seem like a fighter's dream, but it does have its drawbacks.
For Tommy Huff, who lives a few blocks from the 13th Street Gym, the thought of walking to the ring at the Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center showered in the cheers of friends and family is good and bad.
"I've done it before at the Convention Center and had the crowd scream and everything," said the 20-year-old Huff, who made several appearances at the Big Bunker as an amateur.
"Sometimes, it makes you want to throw up right there from nerves. But I've been able to handle it so far. Hopefully, I'll be able to block it out and think, 'It's time for me to go to work and get my paycheck and do what I've got to do.'"
Huff is scheduled to earn his first boxing payday, good for $500, on April 27 on a card featuring Joe Mesi's heavyweight bout against Jorge Luis Gonzalez.
Huff is slated to face Ian Gardner of New Brunswick, also a first-time pro, in a middleweight bout.
Gardner boasts an 83-7 amateur record, while Huff was 19-4 before turning pro. The difference in experience doesn't faze Huff.
"I've fought guys with 200 fights and guys that were ranked in magazines," he said. "But that doesn't bother me. I think it's an advantage. Guys look at me and say, 'This guy only has 20 or 25 fights, so I'm going to go out there and walk all over him.' When I come out there and show them what I know, it kind of takes them by surprise."
Lew Ciavaglia, the head of Niagara PAL boxing and Huff's trainer since he took up the sport four years ago, has worked on Huff's discipline and ring technique. But Huff's desire caught the eye of Jack Mesi, father and manager of the heavyweight headliner.
"He's ballsy," said Mesi, who saw Huff in several amateur fights and helped him land a spot on the undercard. "You can have all the skills in the world, but no balls, and you've got nothing." Ciavaglia said the key for Huff is to keep from getting goaded into a brawl.
"He gets me mad when he goes toe-to-toe," said Ciavaglia, who won the 1952 Buffalo Courier-Express Gold Gloves featherweight championship and compiled a 12-1 record as a professional. "That's when I want to kill him."
"Sometimes I get a little out of control and get a little frustrated and try to hurt the guy if I know I can hurt him," Huff said. "When it comes down to it, I think I can control it, because now it comes down to business."
Huff learned his lessons well enough to convince Ciavaglia that it was time to turn pro.
"He's at the point now where, honestly, if I kept him amateur, I'd be wasting his time," Ciavaglia said. "Even though he's only had 23 fights, he's 19-4 and he's fought the best in the country."
It wasn't a tough decision for Huff.
"I figured, I've got a chance that a lot of people don't get, so I figured I'd be a jerk to let it go," he said.
A conversation with sparring partner Eddie Dawson, a light-heavyweight from Niagara Falls, Ont., with a 4-1 professional record, eased Huff's mind about fighting without headgear for the first time.
"I talked to my friend Eddie and he said it's really nothing to worry about," Huff said. "With everything going on, you don't even feel it too much.
"Without the headgear on, he said it helps him because he can see better and he's more aware that he doesn't have headgear."
While the undercard also includes a heavyweight 10-rounder featuring Donovan "Razor" Ruddock and four other scheduled fights, Huff knows he'll be the main focus of much of the crowd.
"Just about everyone I know says they're going to be there," Huff said. "I feel really privileged about it, but at the same time, I feel a little nervous. Everybody has expectations, and I've got to go out and live up to them."