Craigieburn boxer Michael Zerafa runs 10 kilometres every morning and trains three times a day to stay at the top of his game.
The 21-year-old boxer is the state number one in the light middleweight division and ranked number three in Australia.
“To be the best, you have to train like you’re the best,” he says. “There’s no point in doing a half-arsed job.”
Pretty Boy Zerafa, as he is known, had his first professional
fight as soon as he was eligible – the day after his 18th birthday – and
he is on track to be the best.
He won the Australian Academy of Boxing’s Golden Gloves
competition in 2010 and has been selected for state and national teams,
and the 2010 Commonwealth Games team.
It was a challenging eight-round match against Faisal Fayad – a
fighter more than a decade his senior – that won Zerafa the Victorian
light middleweight title in November, 2011.
That kickstarted a successful career for the young boxer, and his next two fights will be a big step up.
Zerafa will fight 34-year-old David Galvin in the main supporting
undercard fight at the World Boxing Council Youth World Super
Middleweight Title on September 21 at the Croxton Park Hotel, Thornbury.
He will get his chance to take on his first big international
match on November 8. He’s bracing himself for a fight against world
number four, Indian fighter Pradeep Singh at the World Boxing Council
Asia Continental Middleweight Championship in Bangkok.
Zerafa has been offered the chance to fight in Mexico, China and
the US. But so far has turned them down because he knows the best thing
to do is build himself up and make sure he is ready to take the big
hits.
The state’s undefeated light middleweight champion defeated Rey
Anton Olarte in June to win the 2013 Bob Rose Cup at the Malvern Town
Hall, despite a knockdown in round three. This was his second Bob Rose
Cup.
The former Craigieburn Secondary College student has been boxing since he was 11.
He was 14 when he entered his first fight. He had never been hit
before. “I was nervous, scared, worried,” he says. “But I trained hard,
I’ve always trained hard.”
Zerafa knows the sport is as mentally demanding as it is physically tough.
He explains that it’s a “lonely sport” – all down to the
individual. “On a football team, you can turn to another player,” he
says. “But in a ring if you win you’re a hero, if you lose no one wants
to know you.”
Zerafa says it is important to surround yourself with positive
people. His parents are very supportive. His father even drives behind
him at 4 am when he is running along the side of a freeway, to light his
path.
“Wherever I am, they are always there with me,” he says of his parents.
Then there is his dedicated trainer of four years, Daryl Ford.
Zerafa hopes to start a charity with Ford for disadvantaged youth when
his professional career takes off.
“Me, Daryl and God, we’re going to go all the way.”- bfitzgerald@mmpgroup.com.au
