While his fellow high school seniors were looking ahead to college or their first job, Zion Reed graduated from New Hope High School last week as a professional athlete, and a successful one at that.
Three weeks before his graduation, Reed, 19, won his first professional boxing match, defeating Gage Bouquet of Laurel by technical knockout at 2:33 of the second round at Magnolia Center in Laurel.
“We knew he was real tall, real long, real lanky and had the reach advantage,” Reed said of Bouquet. “He had the record advantage, he was already 1-0, and he was in his hometown.”
That last part was not lost on Reed’s grandfather, Oliver Miller, who owns the gym Reed and many other boxers have trained at over the years.
“You can’t allow yourself to leave it up to the judges, especially when you’re in their hometown,” Miller said. “In a situation like that, if you can’t knock him out, you’re going to lose the fight.”
Reed hadn’t gone the distance in five amateur fights and had no intention of leaving it up to the judges in his pro debut.
“I’ve never been past the second round,” he said. “I don’t get paid for overtime, so I’m not trying to go all four rounds.”
That requires a plan, and Reed had one for his pro debut.
“The game plan was in training camp to fight taller people,” Reed explained. “People my height, it’s not tricky. We’re face to face, our arms are probably the same length. But a taller fighter, he can stay back and keep popping that jab and keeping you off of him.
“So the game plan was to get under and over him. If he throws a jab, I duck under and explode, then hop back out. If I got him to the ropes, I’d stay right there on him because I knew he wouldn’t be able to take my power, because I hit hard for a middleweight.
“We knew if he came forward, he was going to lose, and he came forward. I think I only got hit twice that fight.”
Reed avoids working overtime during fights by working overtime in training.
“We’ll start here, training,” said Reed, sitting with Miller and fellow boxer Antonio Terry at his grandfather’s gym on College Street in Columbus. “We’ll spar for like five rounds, we’ll do five rounds of jump rope, 500 pushups, 500 situps. Then we go run a mile, then come back and do the other 500 pushups, 500 situps, then we’ll do three more rounds of sparring.”
No wonder Reed says, “Excuse my language, but training camp is hell. No air, no fan, sauna suits.”
“This is the hard part,” Terry said. “Fighting ain’t the hard part.”
That’s probably why they are eager to get back in the ring.
“After a fight, we’re searching for another opponent,” Reed said. “If it was up to us, we’d fight every week.”
“If it was up to me, I’d fight every day,” Terry added.
Then Miller, the voice of reason, chimed in. “But the (state boxing) commission won’t allow that.”
So instead it’s back to the gym. Miller and Terry are each scheduled to fight July 9, again in Laurel. So the grueling regimen resumes.
“You have to come by and watch them train so you can see how insane it is,” Miller said.
Miller has been in the fight game for a long time, going back to his own days as a champion in both Golden Gloves (1978) and kickboxing — “I moved onto kickboxing,because those guys couldn’t box,” he says — and Reed is not the first relative at his gym. Shannon Reed, Miller’s son and Zion Reed’s uncle, was a boxer who fought 91 professional bouts before his death in 2018.
“My uncle, he used to beat up on us,” Reed said of his early days at the gym. “I got hit so hard by my uncle, I threw up on the mat.
“We would come in here and fight every day, me and my cousins. And I’m the youngest, so you know I used to get my butt whooped every day.”
In Reed’s world, those are happy memories. In fact, almost everything at the gym makes him happy.
“I love to work out here,” he said. “It takes my mind off of stuff. I’ll get up and go running at night and go jogging 14 miles. I used to do it right before school. It takes my mind off of everything.
“Life is hard, boxing is not. The real world, that’s a lot, but I come in here, and I have my way. This is my home. This is my sanctuary. This is like another church for me.”
It’s a church that requires daily devotion to succeed, but Reed loves it.
“We have fun here,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard work. But we have fun here. We beat up on each other with smiles on our faces.”
Despite his obvious confidence, almost superhuman work ethic, athleticism and well-honed boxing skills, there is a small part of Reed that can’t quite believe what is happening around him. His face lights up talking about something as basic as having his record on BoxRec.com, a boxing database.
“That’s also cool,” he said. “I’m on BoxRec now, like a real professional. Floyd Mayweather and them? They’re on BoxRec, and I’m on BoxRec. That feels good, I can’t lie to you. And I did it right before graduation.
“I’m not used to any of this.”
Reed played football for New Hope off and on during high school, dropping it to focus on boxing after his uncle died and returning to play full time as a senior. Going from one sport to the other required some extra work.
“I was 230 (pounds) for football, and two and a half months later I was down to 160,” he said. “It was working hard, every day; in the gym, every day. On a good workout day, I can lose 5 pounds.”
“I fight between 160 and 168,” he said. “I feel great at 160, and I really feel great at 165, 168. I have more muscle.”
For Reed, all of the work was worth it when his hand was raised in victory after his first pro fight, three weeks before his high school graduation.
“Before the fight, I said there’s no backing out now. We’re in here, let’s get to business,” Reed recalled. “After the fight, it was, we did it, Unc. When he raised my hand, that’s what I said.
“And he asked how did it feel. I said, I’m not used to any of this, but I’m from Columbus, Mississippi. We come, and we take over, and I did it for my uncle.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 28 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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