PROSPECT JAY PAYSO READY FOR HIS PRO DEBUT

Posted on | April 24, 2007 | 9 Comments

JAY PAYSO: FIGHTING HIS WAY OUT OF TROUBLE
By: Rich Bergeron

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There was a time when Jay Payso made all his moves on the New York City streets, but one chance meeting with a boxer in lockup completely altered his perspective. No stranger to fighting, having been involved in his share of street scraps already, Payso hit the gym and found a new talent. Now, he’s making his best moves in the ring, preparing for his Pro Debut this Thursday night at the Hammerstein Ballroom.

Payso doesn’t know much about his opponent, Jose Ortiz, but he’s aware Ortiz is from out of town and brings some talent and experience with him to New York. “He’s from New Jersey, and he won the Canadian Golden Gloves,” Payso said.

Plying his trade in the amateurs, Payso grew to appreciate the sport he once shunned for fear of ruining his good looks. “I’ve been fighting for about 6 years,” said Payso. “One day I just went to the gym with one of my friends, and I ended up loving the sport. Everything is a team: basketball, baseball, football, everything is a team, and you gotta do it all with a team, but boxing is you, yourself. It’s just you in the ring, and nobody’s there to help you in the ring. When you win in boxing, it’s something you accomplish by yourself, just you and your trainer. I think that’s a beautiful thing.”

He is focused on what he hopes will be a great future in boxing and has thoughts of winning a big belt on his brain. “I’m just trying to be the champ of the world, you know,” he said. “I just hope people look up to me, and I want someday for kids to start saying, ‘I wanna be just like him when I grow up.’”

He considers himself more of a boxer than a brawler and claims speed as his greatest strength. “Speed and power,” he said, “but, you know, it’s mostly speed.” He also points out that the left hook is his best punch.

Training

Add to My Profile | JAY WORKING ON HIS SPEED AND TIMINGRaised by a strict and patient mother, he considers her his personal hero. “I look up to a few people. People like my mother. My mother’s my first role model,” he said. My mother, she put up with a lot in life, and she struggled a lot. She helped me through a lot of struggle we been through, and she’s still there strong, working, doing what you gotta do to get by.”

He also appreciates what both Tito Trinidad and Muhammad Ali have done for the sport of boxing. “Muhammad, he did some big things in boxing, but he’s not just about boxing, he was involved in politics and everything, and he stood out, and I respect that,” said Payso. “Tito is just a great fighter. He fought for his country and his people, and he never gave up striving for what he wanted.”

Payso keeps a rigorous training schedule. “Training’s been real good,” he said. “I wake up in the morning and run four or five miles, relax at home, and then I go to the gym around 2:00 PM, go home, relax for a little while again, and then I go back to the gym. Training’s been really intense, and I’ve had some great sparring, you know.”

Payso is trained by Kell Rich, who seems like part of his family to the young professional prospect. “He taught me much more than boxing, he taught me about life and opened up my eyes up about life. This is when I realized that I was never a boxer until I met my big brother, my trainer – Kel Rich,” he wrote about Rich on his MySpace page.

Asked about what his toughest fight was so far, Payso provided an answer that shows he’s thinking ahead and not looking back. “This is my pro debut,” he said. “I had some pretty tough amateur fights, but I really don’t know how to answer that question. That’s the past.”

He did recall one of his favorite fights at the 2005 Empire State Games. “It was in upstate New York, and it wasn’t even the fight for the medal,” he said. “So many people at the fight were chanting my name, and there were people not even from New York cheering for me. The crowd was so intense, and the kid I was fighting at the time was number five in the nation. He was supposed to win the fight, but as soon as the bell rang, in the first round I came out and did my thing. I hit him with a left hook that sent him out of this world. It was a great fight for me for that day.”

Given a chance to speak his mind, Payso gave respect to those who helped him get ready for his first pro bout. “I’ve gotten in some great sparring with Gary “Kid” Starks and Juan Dominguez, who’s a great amateur from the Dominican Republic and is now professional,” he said. “GYMU Boxing has helped me out so much, and it’s a great boxing camp. I’m just trying to stay focused on getting my first professional fight out of the way and have many more victories to come after this one.”

To find out more about Payso, go to: WWW.MYSPACE.COM/GYMU

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