Tayvon Fish completes nine-year comeback journey with KO win
NEWARK, N.J. — For Tayvon Fish, his professional debut on Saturday night was about far more than a win.
It was the culmination of nearly a decade of setbacks and injuries, plus the loss of a coach who helped shape his boxing journey.
Fish finally made his long-awaited professional debut a memorable one, stopping Rahmel McKinley in the second round of their welterweight fight at Prudential Center in Newark. Though the ending came quickly, Fish admitted afterward that the emotions of the moment nearly got the better of him.
“I came out too anxious,” said the 33-year-old southpaw Fish of Linden, N.J. “I wanted to get the knockout too early, and that’s why I didn’t stop him in the first round. I came out too hot. But when I went back to the corner, my coach said, ‘Yo, just calm down and pick your punches.’ That’s when it started to come back again. Once I took a deep breath in the corner I went out and did what I had to do.”
Fish admits his opponent from North Carolina was frustrating him by repeatedly holding him before a body shot from Fish brought an end to the fight.
“He kept holding me, so I was like, ‘Yo, I’m gonna do whatever I need to do for him to stop holding me,'” Fish said. “I didn’t want to stop him with a body shot. I wanted to knock him out with a hook. I wanted him to let me go so I could come up on top. But it just happened the way it happened. I ain’t look for it.”
The victory represented the end of a long road back to boxing. A multiple-time New Jersey state amateur champion with amateur wins over respected future pros like Robert Terry and Deyshawn Williams, Fish last boxed in 2017 and had been planning to turn pro in 2018. A torn meniscus derailed those plans in 2018, and by the time he recovered, the COVID-19 pandemic had shut down the sport. By that time, Fish — who campaigned at 152 pounds as an amateur — had ballooned to more than 200 pounds and wondered whether he’d ever fight again.
A new career helped change that outlook. Fish became a personal trainer, developing a deeper understanding of fitness and nutrition than he had possessed as an amateur boxer.
“By the grace of God, I got into personal training, and the weight started shedding off. I got somewhere where I could make it, so I was like, ‘I’m gonna make the weight,’” said Fish, who says he is targeting a move down to 140 pounds next.
“When I was an amateur, I didn’t really focus on my nutrition. I was just like, I’m gonna make weight the way that I make weight. I’m a personal trainer now outside of boxing, so I’m very aware of my nutrition. This was probably the easiest weight cut I ever did. I just got real disciplined on what I put into my body.”
Fish says that he got serious about getting back in the ring following the death of his amateur coach, Hakim Waheed, last November. Fish dedicated the fight to Waheed, writing on Instagram before the fight, “I know you’re upstairs watching me, proud. If you ever trained with him, you’ll always remember him saying ,’There’s no holidays in boxing.'”
Dwyke Flemmings Sr. reached out to Fish after Waheed’s passing and told him the time was now to get his boxing dream in motion. They started training together at True Warriors Boxing shortly after.
“If it wasn’t for Dwyke, I probably wouldn’t even have started taking it seriously,” Fish said. “He gave me that phone call, like, ‘You need to get back in,’ when my coach passed away.”
Now managed by David Marsden, a boxing veteran and West Milford councilman, Fish says the goal is to stay active and make up for lost time. Boxrec already lists him for another bout on June 19 in Springfield, Massachusetts, which he says he will discuss with his team this coming week.
After spending nearly a decade wondering whether his boxing career would ever begin, Fish finally has the opportunity to see how far it can go.
Photo by Carlo Estonactoc