Charles Conwell enjoys keeping it simple.
“It’s gym, family, and home for me,” the super welterweight rising star rattles off to DAZN NEWS recently, though not stressing each necessarily in order.
That cyclical foundation has led to a 20-0 record with 15 knockouts to his name for the 27-year-old Cleveland native, who is eyeing another emphatic victory to wrap up the year — this time against Gerardo Vergara at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California on Saturday night, and live on DAZN. The bout will serve as the co-main event to Alexis Rocha vs. Raul Curiel.
“Just going out there and having a dominant win and just finishing him,” Conwell says about his goal for the bout, which he is looking to make his third victory of the year. “That right there will propel me to a great 2025 and bring me bigger and better opportunities.”
In the super welterweight's last time out in August, Conwell placed a compact left hand up top as a distraction punch before winding up and detonating a raucous left hook to the liver for the instant second-round knockout of Khiary Gray.
He then sat back and watched Vergil Ortiz Jr. deliver a majority decision over Serhii Bohachuk in the main event of that card. A highlight win over Vergara this weekend and Conwell believes a fight with Ortiz is within reach for the New Year.
“That’s a fight that could definitely be made in the near future,” he says of a clash with Ortiz. “I think that fight right there is a fight that propels me from only die-hard boxing fans to casual boxing fans. A fight like that is definitely easy to make. It’s an in-house fight.
“We’re with the same team,” he continues, noting how both are signed to Golden Boy Promotions. “We’re with the same group, same streaming platform. I think that right there saves a lot of business on the business end, from the promoter side a lot of headache.”
Conwell has been a headache to deal with for 20 opponents thus far. He's regularly able to plant his base and leverage blunt power on his punches, more than living up to his “Bad News” moniker given to him by his dad.
“Just me with my style in general, it’s bad news for the whole division,” Conwell assures. “What I bring to the table is definitely bad news for the whole division.”
It has been just over five years since Patrick Day died from injuries suffered in the ring due to repeated knockdowns at the hands of Charles Conwell in their October 2019 fight.
In the time elapsed, Conwell has grown tired of fellow fighters still vowing death in the ring against their opponents.
While he chalks a lot of that talk up to bravado and tapping into a possible mental warfare edge, Conwell hopes these kind of threats end for good in 2024.
“Words are powerful and I don’t think they more so want that to happen. I think it’s a warrior mindset they have and they’re just really trying to be locked in and focused,” Conwell began explaining.
“But words have power. Stuff like that shouldn’t be said and people shouldn’t wish death on anybody. Don’t even try to have that mindset. It’s not a cool thing to say because tragedy happens in the ring.”
He experienced it firsthand, his three knockdowns of Day on October 12, 2019 doing enough damage for Day to tragically pass away four days later.
Conwell hopes fellow prize fighters learn from this tragedy and do not resort to verbal threats that can actually pan out due to the sheer violence of the fight game.
“Words have power and you never know what can happen,” Conwell tacks on for good measure. “Those things, if they happen, those people [who say them] will be the most remorseful people because it happened when they were in there.”
He adds: “To be honest, man, I just try to have fun with boxing but take it as serious as possible because it’s a very dangerous sport. This is not a game. This is the most dangerous sport in the world.”
Buy Usyk v Fury 2 PPV now to watch this fight for free
If you are not already a DAZN subscriber, then you can still watch Charles Conwell's fight and nine other amazing bouts for free this weekend.
To do this, just buy the Oleksandr Usyk versus Tyson Fury 2 PPV with DAZN now to get access to a free seven-day free trial. Buying the PPV requires no subscription or future costs.
Fights this weekend in the free trial include:
- Antonio Vargas vs. Winston Guerrero
- Marquis Taylor vs. Ivan Pandzic
- George Liddard vs. Omar Nguale Ilunga
- Alexis Rocha vs. Raul Curiel
- Daniel Dietz vs. Granit Shala
- Murodjon Akhmadaliev vs. Ricardo Espinoza Franco
- Kevin Lele Sadjo vs. Sebastian Papeschi
- Fernando Vargas Jr vs. Matthew Terry
- Dillian Whyte vs. Ebenezer Tetteh
Buy Usyk vs. Fury 2 PPV on DAZN now.
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