By Doveed Linder – BoxingTalk.com Junior middleweight Keandre Leatherwood (11-1-1, 8 KOs) discusses his background in boxing and his upcoming fight with Marcos Primera (20-26-2, 13 KOs), which will take place at Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem, NC on Saturday night.
DL: When did you first put on the gloves? How old were you and what were the circumstances?
Keandre Leatherwood: I was eleven years old. I used to get into a lot of street fights, so my stepfather took me to the gym. I was boxing out of a gym in Cincinnati. I came out of the same gym as Rau’shee Warren, Adrien Broner, and Ricardo Williams, Jr. That’s when Ricardo Williams was going to the Olympics [2000]. When he came out of the Olympics [as a silver medal winner], his career started out great, so it was a dream watching him train. I took my fair share of hard days with them guys, but I think that’s what drove me. I sparred with Adrien Broner and Rau’shee Warren. They were already national champions, so it kind of drove me. It was hard, but I wasn’t going to quit. When I was down in Alabama, I saw Deontay Wilder when he was first starting out. This was when he was trying to make the Olympics.
