Ivan Zucco: “I become a lion in the ring”. In Inzaghilterra hunting the European

There is a place inside Ivan Zucco where it’s cold. He can only enter him, and when his face does it he changes, he is curious, his gaze becomes straight and pungent and the smile turns off. It happens when he gets into the ring, that’s where this 29 -year -old boy who speaks like the first of the class and dresses like a dandy knows how to transform himself and become an inexorable predator. His professional boxing score also says it: 21 wins, 18 of which for Ko. Those who are around him says it, “they show me the images and tell me: that is not you”. And he also says that he also needs his second identity as bread as he fights for the European SuperMedi title in an environment that calls hostile is little to say the least: in Barnsley (England), in the Barnsley stadium, against one of Barnsley who played in Barnsley. But Ivan doesn’t think about it, also because Marvin has in his corner. “Marvin like Hagler, dad calls himself like that. He was a great boxer, more than one hundred dating as an amateur almost all won. His dream was to become a professional, but at 21 years of age they diagnosed him with a arterial hypertension, he could not continue. The thing destroyed him, so he started to train. It was he who brought me to the gym. He left what I wanted, without a hurry, gradual.

How did you understand that it would be your way? “Simple, I won. First 11 fights: 10 wins and a peer, everyone congratulated me. In the meantime I have always been promoted, I graduated with excellent votes, I did the warehouse worker and the bouncer, I alternated eight hours of workouts work. Then I got on level and I understood that two things do well together you cannot do them …”. And Marvin, father and coach, what did he say? “Becoming Italian champion, I crowned the dream he had. When I won the title, he was happier than me.” Now you can also stop, “he said to me. And” But go, I just started “”. Twenty -one meetings, 18 ko: you have chestnut. Did you come or train there? “You train if you are born. And I have always had it. As an amateur putting Ko one is very difficult, they are three rounds with anti -tack gloves and the helmet: even there I won 12 times before the limit, and many others I made them count …”. What is fear? “Once I was convinced that it was a loser thing. Then I embarked on a path with a Mental Coach and I understood that it is not true. Indeed, those who admit that they are afraid is strong, so he can accept it and face it without being succubus.”

Great boxers are perfectionists. You? “Madonna! I am one of those to whom the rest must impose it, I train four hours a day and I never know if it is enough. I feel like a jumper who makes a good extent: the others around are happy, I think of the next centimeter to add to the sticker”. Great boxers often come from difficult contexts and find a road in the ring. You are a bug in boxing fiction. “That’s right. I come from Verbania, I do not arrive from a disadvantaged neighborhood and I grew up in a normal family. The most traumatic event I lived was the separation of mine, but we are talking about two people who have never made me miss anything. This is a commonplace that must be dismantled: boxing is not just a sport of redemption, they can do it all. There is no violence, but contact”. But we still talk about fighting. To win you must have the fire inside. “Everyone has it, everyone expresses him in his area. I hear him burn when there is an important stake, in another context the badness I have in the ring I would not even know by wanting to want. Many boxers in the gym make the hard and then in a meeting they go out, I am the opposite”. How do you get this fire out? “When I go out of the locker room, I look for the opponent with his eyes and do not give him up, like a lion who fixes the prey. It would be nice to start attacking strong from the gong, but no: I have to take a hand. When I take it, I take that clic that changes my face. From a certain point of view, it’s ugly, I don’t enjoy the entry into the ring where I often accompany my idols, England will be Gué Pequeno “. How did you meet Gué? “Through a friend in common. I proposed to train together and accepted, he is passionate about boxing and not getting sick. Afterwards we went to lunch, we talked and it was not a collaboration of type … commercial: we took just as people. I also trained with other artists like the same danger or psalm, it is a world with which I am in tune. When I was in Mexico and I discovered that Jake had cited me in his album, Given … “. What did you do in Mexico? “My manager Cherchi sent me and another boxer, the femina, to train in Jiquipilco. A place remained in the 70s, almost 3 thousand meters in height, you also struggled to breathe. In the morning at 5 they loaded us in a pick up and took us to a field to run. We returned, rest, technique training, rest, sparring. The shopping starts, there was nothing to do.

Boxing and music, we said. They look like different planets … “On the other hand, stage and ring resemble each other. And welcome that music helps to highlight this sport. You know, watch ten motivational films and in eight you find boxing, in music videos you see people with the Olly guantons like, but then in Italy it is difficult to talk about it. It makes me strange because at the time of my father the people woke up at night for the meetings. And because it is a sport that you like, whoever sees a first time. See again “. How come? “A little bit is the wrong belief that we go to kill us, a little there is a general drift to show only shows and trash talking. I don’t like it and I don’t think it is good for boxing “. But, some of your colleague says, the image for a boxer matters a lot. “Very very true, especially for the sponsors who are fundamental. But many want to create characters who are not, monkey with Conor McGregor, who, however, has it in it and does not pretend. Well or bad, it is enough that they talk about it, they say … boh, I would like me to talk about me only well”. In England he faces Callum Simpson, strange boxer. Much higher than you, yet he likes to exchange closely … “For me it is positive, so part of my work does it: tall as it is, going below it would be a problem. He is good, but in certain situations he turns out, and that’s where I will try to put on me”. It will be hell, in Barnsley, you will play away from home. “I GASA, I have everything to earn: visibility, cameras, a European title up for grabs, a huge audience. It is he who has to wire to demonstrate something, not me. Anyway go, then I relax. But if I win I will open very important doors”.