Sept. 14, 2008 — After spending the past year preparing for the Olympics, V.I. boxers John and Julius Jackson returned a couple of weeks ago from Beijing to a well-deserved ovation from a crowd of family, friends and supporters gathered at the Cyril E. King Airport on St. Thomas.
But things aren't going to slow down for them just yet — the brothers soon plan to take their skills to the next level by heading into the professional ranks.
Julius, the elder of the two, went up first in the Beijing games, taking on former boxing champion Kenneth Egan from Ireland. Even though the score might not have shown it, Julius — falling by a score of 22:2 — made fans out of the competition and the crowd by not backing down, hitting Egan with several body shots and combinations and at one point even knocking him down to the mat. Egan praised him after the match, Julius said.
"It was a tremendous fight," Julius said. "I fought him before in the World Games, but this time I fought him way better, I even knocked him down. I felt really good about my performance, and he appreciated the competition, too. It was a good fight, and I learned a lot from it."
John also drew attention at the Olympics, wining his opening bout against Mahamed Nurudzinau of Belarus to advance to the second round of the men's welterweight competition. Although the score was close, 4:2, John was clearly in control throughout the match. John's second-round match was against Kim Jungioo of Korea — a former bronze medalist in the Olympics. While John fell to Jungioo 10:0, he said the experience was something he learned a lot from.
"This year, the guy I fought from Korea won the bronze medal again," John said. "He was very tricky. I was throwing, throwing, throwing, but I didn't get any points. But he would throw one punch, catch me and get a point — I learned a lot by watching him and seeing the different ways he fought during the Olympics."
Adding to his brother's comments, Julius said one of the most important lessons he learned at the Olympics was about being better equipped at adapting to opponents.
"We watched the Korean fight the day before he fought John," Julius said. "The day that he fought John, he was totally different, like he changed his whole style from what we saw the day before, and I think that's one thing I learned — that we have to develop more styles that we can change into, so we can switch it up."
After the hectic schedule in Beijing, coming home should have been a time for recuperation — but instead, the Jackson brothers are already training for their next tournament and preparing for their professional debut.
"We don't have a date as yet about when that's going to happen, we're still talking to a couple of promoters and trying to set things up, but our plan is to have our debut at home," Julius said. "It's going to us and a couple of guys from the Boxing Federation and one fighter from Puerto Rico."
V.I. Boxing Federation head Tony Rosario said last week that representatives from major networks such as Showtime and HBO will be in the territory next month to talk to the brothers.
Being the sons of former three-time boxing champion Julian Jackson, Julius and John should be nervous as their professional debut draws closer. But with the experience of their father to fall back on, they seem as cool as the other side of the pillow.
"The training that we get speaks for itself," John said. "The level of guys that we fought — they have like 80 or 90 fights under their belts, and together we don’t even have 80 fights. A lot of guys are like 'how did you guys make it here so quick', but that's just our training, I guess, and the fact that we have a three-time world champion training with us, so I don't think we have any problems stepping it up."
The professional arena is going to be "more of our forte," Julius added.
"We just started to develop the amateur style and when we started traveling, we started seeing all the different ways we could fight," Julius said. "Right now is when we're really getting the amateur style, but our pro style's always been there, you know. That's just how we train. Our dad was a pro, so I think that's really our type of fight, and I think we're going to do tremendously."
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