FAIRFIELD COUNTY – Emanuel “The Madness” March’s Thanksgiving feast was a little light last week.
“I’m eating,” he said before the holiday. “I’ll try to get a little bit of everything but I’m going to watch my portions. I don’t want to gain any weight. It’s easy to put on but hard to get off.”
March’s thoughts on Turkey Day may well apply to a lot of us, but for him there’s a concrete reason. The 6-2, 175-pound Fairfield County man takes to the squared circle Saturday in Rock Hill for his second professional fight.
“I’m putting the finishing touches on everything,” he said about the final two weeks of prep before taking on his unnamed opponent in a cruiserweight bout. “Making sure my weight is right. I’m already in great shape so it’s really just making sure everything is sharp and staying loose.”
March, who grew up in the western part of the county, around
Blair, Jenkinsville and Lake Monticello, took up fighting not long after
graduating from Fairfield Central in 2020. He played football and basketball
for the Griffins, and said that boxing proved to fit his energy level better
than any other sport.
He broke in with White Rock Boxing in Chapin two years ago and fought in
amateur bouts around the Southeast.
“White Rock turned me into a complete fighter,” he said last summer. “I have a lot of people to spar with and I’m surrounded by a lot of pros. That’s why I’ve gotten so good, because of my coaches and stable mates. Great coaches, great support team.”
He broke into the professional ranks last July in a boxing event at Jamil Temple in Columbia. His opponent, Kedarius Whitley, didn’t last long. March earned a first-round technical knockout.
“My feeling was I wasn’t very satisfied. I was still hungry,” he said. “I knew I still have more to do, more to accomplish.”
Since that time he was scheduled for two other fights, but those events fell through. Even so, March said he didn’t miss a beat.
“I went right back into training,” he said. “I’ve been training ever since the last fight. I’m a professional now, I’ve got to stay ready at any time.”
Any time has now become Saturday. March said he doesn’t know who his opponent is beyond him being from Puerto Rico and has been in 28 professional fights.
“He’s getting knocked out, that’s about how much I know about him,” March said. “That’s how I am in the ring. I don’t worry about what they’ll do to me. I worry about what I’m going to do to them, and they should be too.”
Tickets for Saturday’s card, “Rock the Bells” at the Rock Hill Sports and Events Center, are available at the Rock The Bells website at https://checkout.xtraseats.com/events/rock-the-bells-live-pro-boxing-559a.
